LEO: Literacy Education Online Using Quotations

A quotation is a reference to an authority or a citation of an authority. There are two types of quotations: direct and indirect.

1. A direct quotation uses the exact words of an authority and must be identified in your paper with quotation marks and parenthetical documentation.

2. An indirect quotation, or paraphrase, is a restatement of a thought expressed by someone else that is written in your own style that needs to be documented.

Know when to use quotations

• Use quotations when the specific language of a quote is important.
• Use quotations when accuracy is essential -- to indicate the writer's exact position.
• Use quotations to support your argument, rather than relying upon someone else's words.
• Keep quotes to a minimum. A short phrase or sentence is more easily understood than a long quotation.
• Look for the "kernel" or the most important part of the quotation and extract it.
• Paraphrase a quotation in your own words when possible.

Incorporating quotations into your paper

• Combine a paraphrase with a quotation.

Original: Tania Modleski suggests that "if television is considered by some

to be a vast wasteland, soap operas are thought to be the least nourishing

spot in the desert" (123).

 

Revised: In her critique of soap operas, Tania Modleski argues that some

view television as "a vast wasteland" and soap operas as "the least nourishing

spot in the desert" (123).

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• Introduce a quotation by citing the name of the authority.

  Example: Thoreau believed that "a true patriot would resist a tyrannical majority" (23).

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• Describe or identify the source of information if it is available.

Example: In The Coming of Age, Simone de Beavoir contends that the

decrepitude accompanying old age is "in complete conflict with the manly

or womanly ideal cherished by the young and fully grown" (65).

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• Use key words from the quotation and make them a grammatical part of your sentence.

Example: As William Kneale suggests, some humans have a "moral deafness"

which is never punctured no matter what the moral treatment (Acton 93).

Short Quotations

• If your quotations are less than four lines long (which is usually the case), place them in your text and enclose them with quotation marks.
• Remember to include a parenthetical citation for each quotation used. (The style of documentation used here is MLA.)

Example: Pearl, who is Hawthorne's symbol of truth, reaches a proportionately

happy conclusion, becoming "the richest heiress of her day, in the New World" (243).

 

Example: Edward Zigler laments, "One finds violence, hostility, and aggression

everywhere, including TV, the movies, and in many of our everyday social relations" (40).

Long Quotations

• If a quotation is more than four lines long, set it off from your text by indenting.
• Introduce the quotation with a complete sentence and a colon.
• Indent ten spaces, double space the lines, and do not use quotation marks.
• Do not indent the opening line unless the quote begins a new paragraph.

Example: Robert Hastrow sums up the process in the following passage,

where he compares rays of light to a ball thrown up from the earth and

returning because of the pull of gravity:

The tug of that enormous force prevents the ray of light from leaving

the surface of the star; like the ball thrown upward from the earth, they

are pulled back and cannot escape to space. All the light within the star

is now trapped by gravity. From this moment on, the star is invisible. It

is a black hole in space (65).

Final Reminders

• Do not quote when a paraphrase will do.
• Do not cite sources for information that is readily available in popular reference books:

• well-known dates and events

• identities of famous personalities and politicians

• familiar sayings

• Always provide a context for your quotations -- explain to the reader why and how the quote is relevant to the topic.

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This page was written by Kelly A. Larson for the Write Place, St. Cloud State University, St. Cloud, Minnesota, and may be copied for educational purposes only. If you copy this document, please include our copyright notice and the name of the writer; if you revise it, please add your name to the list of writers.

Last update: 5 March 2004

URL: http://leo.stcloudstate.edu/research/usingquotes.html

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