During the competition for the title of Miss America 1961, five finalists were given two questions to answer. First they were asked what they would do if "you were walking down the runway in the swimsuit competition, and a hell come off one of your shoes?" The second question, however, was a bit more esoteric: "Are American women usurping males in the world, and are they too dominant?"Taken from p. 281 of the essay "Pink Think" by Lynn Peril, published in Everything's an Argument (edited by Andrea Lunsford, John J. Ruszkiewicz, and Keith Walters) on pp. 280-283.Which one of the following correctly quotes the first sentence of the passage in MLA format?A. Miss America contestants had to answer two questions in 1961. B. Miss America contestants had to answer two questions in 1961 (Peril 281). C. During the competition for the title of Miss America 1961, five finalists were given two questions to answer. D. Lynn Peril writes, "During the competition for the title of Miss America 1961, five finalists were given two questions to answer" (281).

Option D is the correct answer. It uses quotation marks around the sentence that is taken word for word from the text. It includes a signal word or phrase at the beginning of the quotation to indicate the author of the quotation. Then after the quotation, the parenthetical citation gives the page number where the quotation can be found. The parenthetical citation is before the period to end the sentence so that the citation is clearly connected to the quotation. The options without quotation marks are simply incorrect, because using another's text word for word without quotation marks is plagiarism even if it contains a citation.