Making quotes from song lyrics is a productive tool for essay writing. You may wish to do in-text citations in case the writer of the song says anything eloquently or the lyrics inside quotation marks proves your point of view. It is allowed to quote the part of the song according to the copyright laws of the US. However, the laws do not say exactly how many words you can use for essay writing. You may use a restricted part of the song if it is a research paper, but there is still a need to know the rules of quoting on the reference page or in the in-text citations.
In-text citations and song lyrics quotations
When adding some song lyrics to your essay, it’s often necessary to place them in quotation marks. Short quotes are integrated into the sentence with quotation marks. As for the long quote song lyrics and those that have four lines or are a bit longer, they should be put in the block quotation where you use the indentation of the whole quote from the above paragraph.
There are also different rules for formatting. It’s always important to structure and format the paper correctly. In order to make citations of the song lyrics in Modern Language Association format, simply write the name of the artist in parentheses and finish the citation with the needed punctuation. Some problems may also occur due to the characteristics of the sound recording medium, but this applies to each individual copy.
If, however, you need to choose the APA format, just include the artist’s name, use the information about copyright law and follow other rules of formatting. Keep in mind that the use of commas between the artist’s name and year is a must for this type of formatting. It is also necessary to put a comma between the tracking number and the year of creation.
How to quote songs in the essay: Main tips and tricks
The next tips will help you out when citing music lyrics in the essay. These include the next ones:
- Try not to use popular song lyrics. Certain songs are very widespread, and some music lyrics are cited very frequently, so they will hardly help you specify some point of view. Use other types of music lyrics in your citations.
- Try not to include too many song lyrics in the essay. If you wish to use a big portion of the song in your in-text citations, the best way out will be paraphrasing. Just choose several lines from different songs if they are related to the argument you need to specify.
- Consider what your audience will imagine after reading the essay. Songs are usually written in a poetic style so that readers imagine something in their minds. If you’ve chosen the needed music lyrics, but they are not very suitable, it’s better to develop your thoughts differently.
Finally, the use of music lyrics is a great way to captivate readers’ attention if you do essay writing. Nevertheless, it’s still important to check out various techniques in order to make sure that you know exactly how to do everything correctly with citing music lyrics. It also helps to make the paper professionally written. Take the information from official text sources so you don’t get it wrong because sound recording medium artifacts can be problematic in recognizing specific words.
As an example, we can use APA and MLA styles on identical songs.
MLA Style:
- Beyoncé sings, “Who run the world? Girls!” in her hit song “Run the World (Girls)” (1).
- In “Bohemian Rhapsody,” Freddie Mercury asks, “Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy?” (Queen).
- The lyrics of Bob Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind” famously ask, “How many roads must a man walk down / Before you call him a man?” (Dylan).
APA Style:
- According to Beyoncé (2011), “Who runs the world? Girls!” (track 1).
- In the song “Bohemian Rhapsody,” Mercury (1975) asks, “Is this real life? Is this just fantasy?” (track 1).
- Dylan (1962) asks the question, “How many roads must a man walk down / Before you call him a man?” in his song “Blowin’ in the Wind” (track
As we can see, the differences are insignificant to the uninitiated author, but they are significant to academia, which develops professional texts.
Ways to quote lyrics in the list of works cited
When creating the list of references, add the needed details depending on the style of formatting. When using the Modern Language Association format, you’ll need to write:
- The artist’s name
- The song titles
- The publication date
- Name of the producer
- Name of the album, and others
You don’t need to use quotation marks in Modern Language Association format. As for in-text citations in other styles, it will be a bit different. The album and song title should be italicized, whereas the publication date should be written after the name of the author or band. You may also make certain notes in the list of references, as required by the MLA style. If you are using the website in place of the physical copy, you’ll have to provide the URL of the page after the year of creation.
This is a rather difficult task, which may be almost impossible to accomplish due to unexpected problems with the characteristics of the sound recording medium. We want to go ahead and tell you that if you are not confident in your abilities, you can turn to professionals like Do My Essay.
The use of quotation marks vs. italics
When formatting the essay, you need to either use quotation marks or provide the lyrics in italics. In many cases, the lyrics inside quotation marks are formatted similarly to poetry. If the quotes consist of less than four lines, quotation marks should be used. In other cases, you may use italics when quoting song lyrics.
In many situations, students do not understand whether they must use quotation marks or use italics. Luckily, there are several easy rules. You only need to italicize the album name and the name of the CD. Remember that if the song title finishes with a quotation mark, it’s important to use them in formatting the essay. The punctuation rules require going beyond the marks of quotation if the quote is not included in the song title, as required by the MLA style.
The goal of citing music lyrics is to help readers learn where you have gathered the data. It also adds some authority to the writer. Depending on the quotation style, the styles of citation may also be different. The main point here is to offer enough information to the readers in order to identify the sources of the quotation.
If the landmark’s name is not provided, you should add some description for the audience to understand where the lyrics inside quotation marks come from.
Final thoughts
Simply because you’re dealing with song lyrics, the citations often contain the date of production and the time when the music was first released. If you’re quoting the entire song lyrics, it’s important to format it in the form of a block quotation. In this case, the APA format is usually used. There are also many other rules related to quoting song lyrics in academic essays. The knowledge of them will help you do everything correctly and cite the music lyrics in the right manner.
In order to do everything in the right way, you may consider looking at the special manuals to get further instructions as to how to cite the song lyrics and what format to use. If you have any questions, it’s better to find more data on this matter to address the problem. For example, if you don’t fully understand the MLA style rules, then you need to delve into the matter in more detail.
In case you’re taking quotes from the booklet, you need to use the booklet’s page number instead of the tracking number. This is necessary because the CD booklet information is not always fully related to what the song is about. Citing music lyrics is not an easy task, but you can turn to professionals of your trade if you need such work done. For example, you can buy argumentative essay from qualified experts in this field.
