QUOTING FROM SOURCES

When you quote from a source, you should bring the author's exact words into your own text. Enclose the quotation in quotation marks. Cite your source.

When you paraphrase, you should put an author's material in your own words and sentence structures. Do not use quotation marks. Cite your source.

Reasons to quote:

  1. To provide evidence to support your assertions
  2. To reproduce the distinctive mood, tone, style, or even persuasiveness of an author that might be lost in paraphrasing
  3. To lend a respected writer's authority to your argument

When using direct quotes:

  1. Always copy quotations carefully, with punctuation, capitalization, and spelling (or misspelling - sic) exactly as in the original.
  2. Use brackets if you introduce words of your own into the quotation (for instance, to clarify an ambiguous antecedent) or make changes in it.
  3. Use ellipses  . . .  if you omit material.
  4. Don't use strings of quotations; make sure that they support your exposition, not supplant it.
  5. Always integrate the quotations into your text rather than simply inserting them.

Integrating quotes
Most sophisticated authors integrate (rather than insert) quotations into their writing - in other words, they make sure that quotations flow smoothly and clearly into the surrounding sentences. Quotations should not just be inserted with no lead in, as in the following example:

Buffy the Vampire Slayer ranks among one of the many current television shows to feature recurring gay characters. "Buffy puts a specifically nineties spin on the idea of 'character development,' allowing one of its main characters, Willow, to undergo a sexual awakening and re-orientation" (Harper 82).

What follows is a revision of the same sentences that demonstrates successful integration of the quotation:

Buffy the Vampire Slayer ranks among one of the many current television shows to feature recurring gay characters. Cultural critic Andrea Harper sees the gay subplot as a modern adaptation of traditional narrative strategy, suggesting that "Buffy puts a specifically nineties spin on the idea of 'character development,' allowing one of its main characters, Willow, to undergo a sexual awakening and re-orientation" (82).

 

Be sure you clarify any ambiguous antecedents that might result from taking a quote out of context. For instance, if Harper's quote read "It puts a specifically nineties spin …", you might want to amend the quotation for clarity (using brackets): "[Buffy] puts a specifically nineties spin …"

When quoting an entire sentence or passage, you can either 1) offer an introductory clause or phrase, often including the author's name and perhaps source title, 2) incorporate it within the flow of your own prose or 3) use an interrupted structure.

Using an introductory clause/phrase:
Speaking of the larger social implications of modern witchcraft, Angela Harper suggests, "The Wicca movement functions as a woman-centered and essentially feminized cultural space" (88).

 

Incorporated structure:
The fact that Willow realizes her homosexuality at the same time that she becomes actively involved in witchcraft speaks to the way that "[t]he Wicca movement functions as a woman-centered and essentially feminized cultural space" (Harper 88).

 

Interrupted structure:
"Buffy puts a specifically nineties spin on the idea of 'character development,'" according to cultural critic Andrea Harper, "allowing one of its main characters, Willow, to undergo a sexual awakening and re-orientation" (82).

The most minimalist means of integration is to link a quotation to a previous sentence with a colon or semicolon:

Buffy the Vampire Slayer ranks among one of the many current television shows to feature recurring gay characters; "Buffy puts a specifically nineties spin on the idea of 'character development,' allowing one of its main characters, Willow, to undergo a sexual awakening and re-orientation" (Harper 82).

Do not overuse the same integration strategy in an essay.

When quoting part of a sentence or passage, make sure the quote matches in tense, grammar, etc. to the rest of your paragraph. For instance:

Character development among the male leads in Buffy, however, can best be described as a "process of harsh humiliation and emasculation that transform[s] them from super-men to girlie-men" (Harrison 9).

When quoting passages longer than 4 lines of prose, off-set the quotation from the rest of the text - usually by indenting 5-10 spaces from the left (and often the right) margin. Some authors choose to use a different font size to off-set such quotes even further. Off-set (or Block) Quotes do not need to be enclosed in quotation marks.