Where do I place an exclamation point or a question mark in relation to a parenthetical reference for a paraphrase?
Note: This post relates to content in the eighth edition of the MLA Handbook. For up-to-date guidance, see the ninth edition of the MLA Handbook.
You should place an exclamation point or a question mark after the parenthetical reference for a paraphrase:
Why did Karl Marx say that a commodity is a strange object (47)?
Work Cited
Marx, Karl. Capital: A Critique of Political Economy. Translated by Samuel Moore and Edward Aveling, edited by Frederick Engels, vol. 1, Progress Publishers, 1887, www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/ download/pdf/Capital-Volume-I.pdf.
It may, however, be better to revise:
Karl Marx said that a commodity is a strange object (47). Why?