Cue the reader in some way whenever you introduce borrowed material. Readers always need to know what words and ideas are yours and what you have culled from other authors. So give them a verbal signal whenever you summarize, paraphrase, or quote directly from sources. Think of it as framing these borrowed materials to set them off from your own work. Such frames offer many options for introducing either ideas or direct quotes drawn from sources:

EXACT WORDS

Michelle Obama argued on The View that “. . . [quotation].”

“[Quotation] . . . ,” says Jack Welch, former CEO of General Electric, pointing out that “. . . [more quotation].”

SUMMARIZED FACTS

According to a report in Scientific American (October 2012), the Mars rover Curiosity will soon . . . [your own words].

PARAPHRASED IDEA

Can a person talk intelligently about books even without reading them? Pierre Bayard, for one, suggests that . . . [your own words].

YOUR SUMMARY WITH QUOTATION

In Encounters with the Archdruid, author John McPhee introduces readers to conservationist David Brower, whom he credits with [your own words], calling him “. . . [quotation].”

As you see, a frame can introduce, interrupt, follow, or even surround the words or ideas taken from sources, but be sure that your signal phrases are grammatical and lead smoothly into the material.

Select an appropriate “verb of attribution” to frame borrowed material. These “signal verbs” influence what readers think of borrowed ideas or quoted material. Use neutral verbs of attribution in reports; save descriptive or even biased terms for arguments. Note that, by MLA convention, verbs of attribution are usually in the present tense when talking about current work or ideas. (In APA, these verbs are generally in the past or present perfect tense.)

Verbs of Attribution

Use ellipsis marks [ . . . ] to shorten a lengthy quotation. When quoting a source in your paper, it’s not necessary to use every word or sentence, as long as the cuts you make don’t distort the meaning of the original material. An ellipsis mark, formed from three spaced periods, shows where words, phrases, full sentences, or more have been removed from a quotation. The mark doesn’t replace punctuation within a sentence. Thus, you might see a period or a comma immediately followed by an ellipsis mark.

ORIGINAL PASSAGE

Although gift giving has been a pillar of Hopi society, trade has also flourished in Hopi towns since prehistory, with a network that extended from the Great Plains to the Pacific Coast, and from the Great Basin, centered on present-day Nevada and Utah, to the Valley of Mexico. Manufactured goods, raw materials, and gems drove the trade, supplemented by exotic items such as parrots. The Hopis were producers as well, manufacturing large quantities of cotton cloth and ceramics for the trade. To this day, interhousehold trade and barter, especially for items of traditional manufacture for ceremonial use (such as basketry, bows, cloth, moccasins, pottery, and rattles), remain vigorous.

— Peter M. Whiteley, “Ties That Bind: Hopi Gift Culture and Its First Encounter with the United States,” Natural History, November 2004, p. 26

Highlighting shows words to be deleted when passage is quoted.

PASSAGE WITH ELLIPSES

Whiteley has characterized the practice this way:

Although gift giving has been a pillar of Hopi society, trade has also flourished in Hopi towns since prehistory. . . . Manufactured goods, raw materials, and gems drove the trade, supplemented by exotic items such as parrots. The Hopis were producers as well, manufacturing large quantities of cotton cloth and ceramics for the trade. To this day, interhousehold trade and barter, especially for items of traditional manufacture for ceremonial use, . . . remain vigorous. (26)

Ellipses show where words have been deleted.

Use brackets [ ] to insert explanatory material into a quotation. By convention, readers understand that the bracketed words are not part of the original material.

Writing in the London Review of Books (January 26, 2006), John Lancaster describes the fears of publishers: “At the moment Google says they have no intention of providing access to this content [scanned books still under copyright]; but why should anybody believe them?”

Use ellipsis marks, brackets, and other devices to make quoted materials fit the grammar of your sentences. Sometimes, the structure of sentences you want to quote won’t quite match the grammar, tense, or perspectives of your own surrounding prose. If necessary, cut up a quoted passage to slip appropriate sections into your own sentences, adding bracketed changes or explanations to smooth the transition.

Words to be quoted are highlighted.

ORIGINAL PASSAGE

Among Chandler’s most charming sights are the business-casual dads joining their wives and kids for lunch in the mall food court. The food isn’t the point, let alone whether it’s from Subway or Dairy Queen. The restaurants merely provide the props and setting for the family time. When those kids grow up, they’ll remember the food court as happily as an older generation recalls the diners and motels of Route 66 — not because of the businesses’ innate appeal but because of the memories they evoke.

— Virginia Postrel, “In Defense of Chain Stores,” The Atlantic, December 2006

Words quoted from source are highlighted.

MATERIAL AS QUOTED

People who dislike chain stores should ponder the small-town America that cultural critic Virginia Postrel describes, one where “business-casual dads [join] their wives and kids for lunch in the mall food court,” a place that future generations of kids will remember “as happily as an older generation recalls the diners and motels of Route 66. ”

Use [sic] to signal an obvious error in quoted material. You don’t want readers to blame a mistake on you, and yet you are obligated to reproduce a quotation exactly — including blunders in the original. You can highlight an error by putting sic (the Latin word for “thus”) in brackets immediately following the mistake. The device says, in effect, that this is the way you found it.

The late Senator Edward Kennedy once took Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito to task for his record: “In an era when America is still too divided by race and riches, Judge Alioto [sic] has not written one single opinion on the merits in favor of a person of color alleging race discrimination on the job.”