Writers Workshop: Writer Resources
Modern Language Association (MLA): Footnotes and Endnotes
When citing a footnote or endnote, you may use information from a secondary source, but you must put parentheses after you mention this information in your paper, and give credit to the work where you found it.
For example, James Smith claims that Joe Smith was an "average scientist with extraordinary ambition" (qtd. in Harris 2: 450). After "qtd. in", give the last name of the author of the work in which you found the information, followed by the volume/edition number, a colon, and the page number. If there is no volume/edition number, then just put the page number. Your bibliographic entry will only contain a citation for the work that you actually read - the work where you found your information. The bibliographic entry that would follow the above example would be as follows:
- Harris, James. Scientists of Our Century. New York: Bantam, 1992.
Do not list the indirect source (the text listed in the endnote or footnote) in your bibliography. Only mention the actual source in which you found the information
For additional information, please see the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers (6th edition) and the MLA style website.