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Citation Guide - MLA9

Citing sources in a different language

The language that you use in your works-cited list should be the language that your paper is written in, which should also determine the punctuation used.   In other words, if your paper is in Spanish but you cite a work published in English in the works-cited list, use “editado por” instead of “edited by”.

If the title is written in a non-Latin alphabet, you can provide the original spelling and a translation:

                                          ثرثرة فوق النيل‎‎ (Adrift on the Nile)

or a transliterated spelling

                                          Thartharah fawqa al- Nīl (Adrift on the Nile)

Use the chosen convention consistently throughout your writing.

In the works cited page, the translation of the title is also put in square brackets.

                                         Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr. Ра́ковый ко́рпус [Cancer Ward]. Dial Press. 1967.

Webb, Danny, and Crystal Andre. Statistiques Economiques a Court Terme [Short-term Economic Statistics], Presses Universitaires de France, 2008.

Greau, J. La trahison des économistes (The betrayal of economists), Gallimard, 2008.

Hohler, S. ’Von biodiversität zu biodiversifizierung: eine neue okonomie der natur?’ (From Biodiversity to Biodiversification: a new economy of nature?), Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte, vol. 37, no. 1, 2014, pp. 60–77.

Definitions

Translate:

express the sense of (words or text) in another language.

 

Transliterate:

write or print (a letter or word) using the closest corresponding letters of a different alphabet or language.