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My literature teacher was explaining punctuation and its relation to quotations when writing a paper according to MLA guidelines and I thought of a question that he didn't have an answer to. I figured this Stack would be an appropriate place to try.

If I'm asking a question that ends in a short quotation, how would I punctuate the sentence if the quotation itself ends in a question mark.

To illustrate what I mean, consider the following.

Do you remember the time when Alex asked "how do you do?"?

I'm asking my own question (do you remember the time...?) but within my question, is a quotation that itself ends in a question mark.

What is the correct way to punctuate this sentence in MLA format? Is the way I wrote it correct? I couldn't find anything on Purdue OWL or this stack, and my teacher is curious to hear back from me as well.

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    I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because the answer provided just quotes the MLA site at the relevant point. Also, particular styles are styleguidist, and it is unreasonable to quote them in isolation.
    – Edwin Ashworth
    Commented Sep 13, 2019 at 14:28

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MLA's style guide answers this directly:

Do not use two question marks. Use only the question mark contained in the quotation:

Which Shakespeare character asked, “Is this a dagger which I see before me,

The handle toward my hand?”

But if the sentence includes a parenthetical citation, place the question mark after the citation:

How would you respond to the writer’s question, “How important is punctuation” (5)?
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