Once you have decided to use a quotation from a source, take care to integrate in carefully into your own writing.

Brief quotations

Short prose quotations should be run in with your text, enclosed in quotation marks that mark where someone else’s words begin and end. When you include such quotations—or other source material—use signal phrases to introduce the material and either parenthetical references or notes, depending on the requirements of the documentation style you are using. A signal phrase often mentions the name of the source’s author and uses a signal verb to introduce the material. Parenthetical references and notes direct your readers to full bibliographic entries included elsewhere in your text.

The following brief quotation uses Modern Language Association (MLA) style:

In Miss Eckhart, Welty recognizes a character who shares with her “the love of her art and the love of giving it, the desire to give it until there is no more left” (10).

In this example, the signal phrase that introduces the quotation includes the author’s name, so MLA style requires only the page number in parentheses for this print source.

Back to top

Long quotations

If you are following MLA style, set off a prose quotation longer than four lines as a block quotation with every line indented one-half inch. If you are following the style of the American Psychological Association (APA), set off a quotation of more than forty words or more than one paragraph, and indent each line one-half inch. If you are following Chicago style, set off a quotation of more than one hundred words or more than one paragraph, and indent the text or use a smaller font (check your instructor’s preference).

Introduce long quotations with a signal phrase or a sentence followed by a colon. Begin the quotation on a new line. Quotation marks are unnecessary with long set-off quotations.

The following long quotation follows MLA style:

A good seating arrangement can prevent problems; however, “withitness,” as defined by Woolfolk, works even better:

Withitness is the ability to communicate to students that you are aware of what is happening in the classroom, that you “don’t miss anything.” With-it teachers seem to have “eyes in the back of their heads.” They avoid becoming too absorbed with a few students, since this allows the rest of the class to wander. (359)

This technique works, however, only if students actually believe that their teacher will know everything that goes on.

Note that the parenthetical citation comes after the period at the end of the quotation and does not have a period after it.

Though long quotations are often necessary in research projects, use them cautiously. Too many of them may make your writing seem choppy or suggest that you have not relied enough on your own thinking.

Back to top

Signal phrases

Carefully integrate quotations into your text so that they flow smoothly and clearly into the surrounding sentences by using a signal phrase or signal verb.

Remember that the signal verb must be appropriate to the idea you are expressing. In the following example, the verb notes tells us that the writer probably agrees with what Welty is saying. If that were not the case, the writer might have chosen a different verb, such as asserts or contends.

As Eudora Welty notes, “learning stamps you with its moments. Childhood’s learning is made up of moments. It isn’t steady. It’s a pulse” (9).

In the next example, the signal phrase Some instructors claim indicates that other authorities might disagree with the teacher’s opinion or that the writer of this example disagrees. To support a point, the writer might have used entirely different wording, such as Many instructors agree.

Some instructors claim that the new technology damages students’ ability to compose academic work. “Abbreviations commonly used in online instant messages are creeping into formal essays that students write for credit,” said Debbie Frost, who teaches language arts and social studies to sixth-graders (“Young Messagers”).

Notice that this example also features the neutral signal verb said where appropriate. The signal verbs you choose allow you to characterize the author’s viewpoint or perspective as well as your own, so choose them with care.

Back to top

Square brackets and ellipses to mark changes

Sometimes you may wish to alter a direct quotation in some way—to make a verb tense fit smoothly into your text, to replace a pronoun with a noun, to eliminate unnecessary detail, to change a capital letter to lowercase or vice versa. Enclose any changed or added words or letters in square brackets, and indicate any deletions with ellipsis points. Do not use ellipses at the beginning or end of a quotation unless the last sentence as you cite it is incomplete.

Here are two examples of quotations that have been altered with bracketed information or ellipsis points and integrated smoothly into the surrounding text.

“There is something wrong in the [Three Mile Island] area,” one farmer told the Nuclear Regulatory Commission after the plant accident (“Legacy” 33).

The brackets indicate that this information was added by the writer and is not part of the original quotation.

Economist John Kenneth Galbraith pointed out that “large corporations cannot afford to compete with one another. . . . In a truly competitive market someone loses” (qtd. in Key 17).

Whenever you change a quotation, be careful not to alter its meaning. In addition, use brackets and ellipses sparingly; too many of them make for difficult reading and might suggest that you have removed some of the context for the quotation.

Back to top