In your academic writing, keep the emphasis on your ideas; use your own words to summarize and to paraphrase your sources and to explain your points. Sometimes, however, quotations can be the most effective way to integrate a source.
Limiting your use of quotations
Although it is tempting to insert many quotations in your paper and to use your own words only for connecting passages, do not quote excessively. It is almost impossible to integrate numerous long quotations smoothly into your own text.
when to use quotations
It is not always necessary to quote full sentences from a source. To reduce your reliance on the words of others, you can often integrate language from a source into your own sentence structure.
Carmona (2004) advised the subcommittee that the situation constitutes an “epidemic” and that the skyrocketing statistics are “astounding.”
As researchers continue to face a number of unknowns about obesity, it may be helpful to envision treating the disorder, as Yanovski and Yanovski (2002) suggested, “in the same manner as any other chronic disease” (p. 592).
Using the ellipsis mark
To condense a quoted passage, you can use the ellipsis mark (three periods, with spaces between) to indicate that you have omitted words. What remains must be grammatically complete.
Roman (2003) reported that “social factors are nearly as significant as individual metabolism in the formation of . . . dietary habits of adolescents” (p. 345).
The writer has omitted the words both healthy and unhealthy from the source.
When you want to leave out one or more full sentences, use a period before the three ellipsis dots.
According to Sothern and Gordon (2003), “Environmental factors may contribute as much as 80% to the causes of childhood obesity.. . . . Research suggests that obese children demonstrate decreased levels of physical activity and increased psychosocial problems” (p. 104).
Ordinarily, do not use an ellipsis mark at the beginning or at the end of a quotation. Readers will understand that you have taken the quoted material from a longer passage. The only exception occurs when you feel it is necessary, for clarity, to indicate that your quotation begins or ends in the middle of a sentence.
using sources responsibly: Make sure that omissions and ellipsis marks do not distort the meaning of your source.
Using brackets
Brackets allow you to insert your own words into quoted material. You can insert words in brackets to clarify a confusing reference or to keep a sentence grammatical in the context of your own writing.
The cost of treating obesity currently totals $117 billion per year—a price, according to the surgeon general, “second only to the cost of [treating] tobacco use” (Carmona, 2004).
To indicate an error such as a misspelling in a quotation, insert [sic], italicized and with brackets around it, right after the error. (See 39c.)
Setting off long quotations
When you quote forty or more words from a source, set off the quotation by indenting it one-half inch from the left margin. Use the normal right margin and do not single-space the quotation.
Long quotations should be introduced by an informative sentence, usually followed by a colon. Quotation marks are unnecessary because the indented format tells readers that the passage is taken word-for-word from the source.
Yanovski and Yanovski (2002) have described earlier treatments of obesity that focused on behavior modification:
With the advent of behavioral treatments for obesity in the 1960s, hope arose that modification of maladaptive eating and exercise habits would lead to sustained weight loss, and that time-limited programs would produce permanent changes in weight. Medications for the treatment of obesity were proposed as short-term adjuncts for patients, who would presumably then acquire the skills necessary to continue to lose weight, reach “ideal body weight,” and maintain a reduced weight indefinitely. (p. 592)
Notice that at the end of an indented quotation the parenthetical citation goes outside the final mark of punctuation. (When a quotation is run into your text, the opposite is true. See the sample citations above on this page.)
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