How to write lyrics in an essay

You can use a limited portion of a song for your research paper, but it must be acknowledged though in-text citations and a listing in your works cited or reference page. When incorporating lyrics into an essay, put the lyrics inside quotation marks.

When citing songs, you should always use quotation marks. However, if your quote is several lines long, you should use a block quote, indenting the citation from the paragraph. How to Quote Lyrics in References You should also make notes in the references list, providing the name of the album that contains the song.

If the quotation is three lines or longer, set it off like a block quotation (see above). Some writers prefer to set off two-line verse quotations for emphasis. Quote the poem line by line as it appears on the original page. Do not use quotation marks, and indent one inch from the left margin.

In this case, one can use both parenthetical and narrative in-text citations when writing scholarly papers. In practice, parenthetical in-text citations should include the artist’s name and the time containing the cited lyric. Also, these details should appear inside rounded brackets at the end of a sentence.