Do I cite a word or passage each time I quote it?
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.
No. If you quote from a work and provide an in-text citation at first mention, you usually do not have to provide an in-text citation at subsequent mention as long as it is clear from your prose that you quoted the passage earlier in your essay. This rule applies when the subsequent mention appears directly after the first mention, as in the following example:
In Romeo and Juliet, Juliet asks, “What’s in a name?” (2.2.43). By “name” she means Romeo’s last name–Montague.
The rule also applies if the subsequent mention appears farther from the first mention, as in this example from the end of an essay:
We thus come back to where our investigation of Shakespeare’s play began: “What’s in a name” depends on who is asking.