1. mbinks89

    mbinks89 Active Member

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    Quotations with Weird Punctiation

    Discussion in 'Word Mechanics' started by mbinks89, Feb 18, 2014.

    I'm writing an essay. I would like to know how to format the following two lines correctly.

    This land like a mirror turns you inward
    And you become a forest in a furtive lake;
    . . . . . .

    The ellipses indicates further lines. Since the second line ends in a semi-colon, would I write then:

    “This land like a mirror turns you inward / And you become a forest in a furtive lake;” These are the first two lines of “Dark Pines under Water.”

    Or would it have to be something like:

    “This land like a mirror turns you inward / And you become a forest in a furtive lake; . . .” These are the first two lines of “Dark Pines under Water.”

    Or none of the above? Thanks.
     
  2. thirdwind

    thirdwind Member Contest Administrator Reviewer Contributor

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    I think it's the first one but without the semicolon, and you can combine the two sentences into

    "This land like a mirror turns you inward / And you become like a forest in a furtive lake" are the first two lines of "Dark Pines under Water."​

    Maybe someone else has a more authoritative answer.
     
  3. David K. Thomasson

    David K. Thomasson Senior Member

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    The punctuation isn't weird. Break the lines as in your first example, exactly as they break here.
     
  4. mammamaia

    mammamaia nit-picker-in-chief Contributor

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    ditto what david said...

    but i'd put 'these are...' before the quotation, not after it...

    or change the new sentence, 'These are...' to the tag 'are...' as in thirdwind's suggested version... the semicolon must be included regardless, as it's part of the original...
     
  5. thirdwind

    thirdwind Member Contest Administrator Reviewer Contributor

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    I checked the MLA guidelines, and you only include punctuation at the end of the line if it's important (so you wouldn't include a comma). I guess in this case the semicolon is important, so you would include it.
     

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