Quotations should duplicate the source exactly, even if they contain spelling errors. Add the notation sic (Latin for “thus”) in brackets immediately after any such error to indicate that it is not your error but your source’s. As long as you signal them appropriately, you may make changes to

Using Italics for Emphasis You may italicize any words in the quotation that you want to emphasize; add a semicolon and the words emphasis added (in regular type, not italicized or underlined) to the parenthetical citation:

In her 2001 exposé of the struggles of the working class, Ehrenreich writes, “The wages Winn-Dixie is offering--$6 and a couple of dimes to start with--are not enough, I decide, to compensate for this indignity” (14; emphasis added).

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Using Ellipsis Marks for Omissions You may decide to omit words from a quotation because they are not relevant to the point you are making. When you omit words from within a quotation, use ellipses— three spaced periods (. . .) — in place of the missing words. When the omission occurs within a sentence, include a space before the first ellipsis mark and after the last mark:

Hermione Roddice is described in Lawrence’s Women in Love as a “woman of the new school, full of intellectuality and . . . nerve-worn with consciousness” (17).

When the omission falls at the end of a sentence, place a period directly after the final word of the sentence, followed by a space and three spaced ellipsis marks:

But Grimaldi’s commentary contends that for Aristotle rhetoric, like dialectic, had “no limited and unique subject matter upon which it must be exercised. . . . Instead, rhetoric as an art transcends all specific disciplines and may be brought into play in them” (6).

A period plus ellipses can indicate the omission not just of the rest of a sentence but also of whole sentences, paragraphs, or even pages.

When a parenthetical reference follows the ellipses at the end of a sentence, place the three spaced periods after the quotation, and place the sentence period after the final parenthesis:

But Grimaldi’s commentary contends that for Aristotle rhetoric, like dialectic, had “no limited and unique subject matter upon which it must be exercised. . . . Instead, rhetoric as an art transcends all specific disciplines . . .” (6).

When you quote only single words or phrases, you do not need to use ellipses because it will be obvious that you have left out some of the original:

More specifically, Wharton’s imagery of suffusing brightness transforms Undine before her glass into “some fabled creature whose home was in a beam of light” (21).

For the same reason, you need not use ellipses if you omit the beginning of a quoted sentence unless the rest of the sentence begins with a capitalized word and appears to be a complete sentence.

Using Brackets for Insertions or Changes Use brackets around an insertion or a change needed to make a quotation conform grammatically to your sentence, such as a change in the form of a verb or pronoun or in the capitalization of the first word of the quotation. In this example from an essay on James Joyce’s short story “Araby,” the writer adapts Joyce’s phrases “we played till our bodies glowed” and “shook music from the buckled harness” to fit the grammar of her sentences:

In the dark, cold streets during the “short days of winter,” the boys must generate their own heat by “play[ing] till [their] bodies glowed.” Music is “[shaken] from the buckled harness” as if it were unnatural, and the singers in the market chant nasally of “the troubles in our native land” (30).

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You may also use brackets to add or substitute explanatory material in a quotation:

Guterson notes that among Native Americans in Florida, “education was in the home; learning by doing was reinforced by the myths and legends which repeated the basic value system of their [the Seminoles’] way of life” (159).

Some changes that make a quotation conform grammatically to another sentence may be made without any signal to readers:

Adjusting the Punctuation within Quotations Although punctuation within a quotation should reproduce the original, some adaptations may be necessary. Use single quotation marks for quotations within the quotation:

If the quotation ends with a question mark or an exclamation point, retain the original punctuation:

“Did you think I loved you?” Edith later asks Dombey (566).

If a quotation ending with a question mark or an exclamation point concludes your sentence, retain the question mark or exclamation point, and put the parenthetical reference and sentence period outside the quotation marks:

Edith later asks Dombey, “Did you think I loved you?” (566).

Avoiding Grammatical Tangles When you incorporate quotations into your writing, and especially when you omit words from quotations, you run the risk of creating ungrammatical sentences. Avoid these three common errors:

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Verb incompatibility occurs when the verb form in the introductory statement is grammatically incompatible with the verb form in the quotation. When your quotation has a verb form that does not fit in with your text, it is usually possible to use just part of the quotation, thus avoiding verb incompatibility:

As this sentence illustrates, use the present tense when you refer to events in a literary work.

Ungrammatical omissions may occur when you delete text from a quotation. To avoid this problem, try adapting the quotation (with brackets) so that its parts fit together grammatically, or use only one part of the quotation:

Sentence fragments sometimes result when writers forget to include a verb in the sentence introducing a quotation, especially when the quotation itself is a complete sentence. Make sure you introduce a quotation with a complete sentence: