Advice about Quoting and Citing
Note: Check the "Index to the Guide" for specific questions about quoting and citing.
Overview
Clearly document the sources of the ideas and words in your writing using citations. A citation can be a signal phrase (鈥淎s Michael Twitty argues,鈥�), a parenthetical citation (Twitty 128), or a footnote. The type of citation depends on what you鈥檙e writing and what discipline you are writing for (some examples are MLA, APA, and Chicago style). But once you get the hang of citations, they will become an important part of your writing.
Integrate quotations smoothly into your paper, whether they are a few words or many
lines. A good rule is that you should have at least as much of your own explanation
or analysis of a quotation as there is quotation.
How often should you cite?
It鈥檚 important to find a balance between citing too little and cluttering your paper with interruptions. You don鈥檛 need to put a citation after every sentence unless every sentence refers to a different source. When only one sentence cites a source, place the citation at the end of that sentence. By writing carefully, you can distinguish your own ideas from those that come from sources:
Cooking and eating are inextricably tied to memory, which Michael Twitty calls his 鈥渕ost indispensable ingredient鈥� (11). Although community cookbooks have given way to influencer blogs, people still search nostalgically for the flavors of their childhood.
If a long paragraph is devoted to summarizing material from a single source, one citation is sufficient provided that you clearly indicate that the material comes from the source and not from you:
According to Michael Twitty, chefs today embrace their cultural roots as a means of
self-definition and self-expression. For many, food can be associated with a specific
geographical location or cultural moment. Ancestral and community bonds are passed
down in the food families make, and this can give a feeling of security and community.
However, in the case of 鈥渟oul food,鈥� African-Americans鈥� ancestral heritage may be
obscured by family ties broken during enslavement (5 - 7).
Short quotations
Use quotation marks and incorporate quoted material within your own sentence. Short quotations, up to four typed lines of text, should be integrated with your own language. Make sure a sentence containing a quotation reads fluently and is correct grammatically. Use quotation marks to indicate which words, phrases or passages come directly from a source, as in the following two examples:
Ernest Becker argues, "The process of socialization is characterized by one fundamental and recurring fact: the child's natural urge to move freely forward, to manipulate, experiment, and exercise his own assimilative powers is continually blocked" (58).
Note: Use a comma after an introductory phrase such as "Ernest Becker argues." Notice, also, that the parenthetical citation comes after the end quotation mark but before the sentence punctuation.
When the introductory phrase ends in "that," you do not use a comma before the quotation.
Ernest Becker writes that "the process of socialization is characterized by one fundamental and recurring fact: the child's natural urge to move freely forward, to manipulate, experiment, and exercise his own assimilative powers is continually blocked" (58).
Often, you do not need to include a whole sentence from a source if all you want to quote is a word or phrase. Select quoted material carefully so that you control the sentence.
Socialization involves continually blocking and frustrating a child鈥檚 instincts "to
move freely forward, manipulate, experiment, and exercise his own assimilative powers"
(Becker 58).
Longer or block quotations
When you quote a long passage (four or more lines of prose; three or more lines of poetry), indent the whole quotation 陆鈥� from the left margin to clearly distinguish the block quotation from your own text. The right margin does not need any adjustment. Since a block quotation is marked by its indented format, you do not need to use quotation marks. Block quotations usually follow an introductory sentence ending with a colon, as in this example from another section of the 911爆料 Guide to Writing, edited by Prof. Michael Marx:
Whether your quoted text is short or long, remember that quotations do not speak for themselves. You need to comment upon them and interpret them for your reader.
Ellipses
When you alter the quoted material in any way, you need to indicate to your reader that you have done so. Use an ellipsis of three dots (. . . ) to eliminate parts of a source you do not wish to quote. You should take care not to distort the meaning of the original source when you use ellipses. For material omitted at the end of the sentence, add a period to the three ellipsis dots. That means you'll have four dots at the end of a sentence. Ellipses should be used only in the middle and at the end of a quotation; they are not used at the beginning. Note that there is a space typed after each dot.
Because socialization involves blocking "the child's natural urge to ... exercise
his own assimilative powers," Becker argues that all people grow up neurotic (58).
Square brackets
Square brackets [ ] indicate words that you, as writer and editor, insert into a quote to clarify it or make it grammatically correct.
The school board candidate then concluded: "Our efforts in this direction [improving
graduation rates] have never appeared more promising.
sic
Place the Latin term sic ("thus") in brackets to indicate an obvious error in the original quoted source. You want your reader to know that the error came from the source and not from your own carelessness. However, don鈥檛 overuse 鈥渟ic鈥� to point out someone鈥檚 mistake: if you don鈥檛 need to quote the error, a paraphrase might be better. Alternatively, you may include the correction inside the brackets:
The early edition of the Rocky Mountain Post declared Harry Truman the winner of the 1948 presidential election and declared: "Harry's buick [sic] stops again in Washington!"
The early edition of the Rocky Mountain Post declared Harry Truman the winner of the
1948 presidential election and declared: "Harry's buick [buck] stops again in Washington!"
Quotation within a quotation
Use single quotation marks when the source you are quoting contains a quotation within it.
According to psychiatrist Arthur Kleinman, agreement about treatment and prognosis for mental illness leads to "the view that depression, schizophrenia, and phobias are 'things' in the real world" (11).
Exception: In a block quotation, use double quotation marks if the source contains
a quotation within it.
Italicizing for emphasis
Sometimes when you quote a passage, you want your reader to pay attention to a particular word or phrase. You can italicize that word or phrase when you quote, but you must indicate to your reader that you have added the italics. Here's how to do it:
As late as 1929, Pierre Janet, lecturing on mental illness, connected madness to supernatural superhuman abilities. "In the development of every great religion, both in ancient and in modern times," Janet said, "there have always been strange persons who raised the admiration of the crowd because their nature seemed to be different from human nature" (Janet 8, italics added). This distinction made madness both feared and envied.
Besides the addition of italics, notice how in the above example the writer broke
the quotation into two parts by interrupting the quoted passage with "Janet said."
These interruptions serve well to help you integrate the quoted material into your
own writing. Notice, also, that the writer commented upon the italicized terms in
the sentence that follows the quotation.
Dialogue
Direct discourse or dialogue should always be enclosed in quotation marks. In dialogue, a change in speaker is usually indicated by a new paragraph, as in this example from Mason Stokes鈥檚 All the Truth I Can Stand:
鈥淚s that the young man who came by the other morning? What was his name?鈥�
鈥淪hane.鈥�
鈥淗e goes to the university?鈥�
鈥淵eah.鈥�
鈥淵ou should bring him by the house. I鈥檇 like to get to know him.鈥� (Stokes 68).
Poetry
If you are quoting more than three lines of poetry, quote them line by line as they appear in the poem, indenting as you would a block quotation. Indicate the line numbers in parentheses after the final punctuation mark.
In "Snake," Emily Dickinson describes her subject by the effect of its movement:
The grass divides as with a comb,
A spotted shaft is seen;
And then it closes at your feet
And opens further on. (5-8)
If you are quoting three lines or fewer, integrate the quotations into your own sentence, using a slash (/) to indicate line breaks. Indicate line numbers at the end of the quotation.
In "Snake," Emily Dickinson describes her subject by the effect of its movement: "The grass divides as with a comb,/ A spotted shaft is seen" (5-6).