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.
WHEN TO USE QUOTATIONS
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Although it is tempting to insert many quotations in your paper and to use your own words only for connecting passages, do not quote excessively.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 quotations smoothly into your own text.
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.
As Hurst has pointed out, until “an outcry erupted in the Northern press,” even the Confederates did not deny that there had been a massacre at Fort Pillow.4
Union surgeon Dr. Charles Fitch testified that after he was in custody, he “saw” Confederate soldiers “kill every negro that made his appearance dressed in Federal uniform.”20
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 left words out. What remains must be grammatically complete.
Union surgeon Fitch’s testimony that all women and children had been evacuated from Fort Pillow before the attack conflicts with Forrest’s report: “We captured . . . about 40 negro women and children.”6
The writer has omitted several words not relevant to the issue at hand: 164 Federals, 75 negro troops, and.
When you want to leave out one or more full sentences, use a period before the three ellipsis dots. For an example, see the long quotation below.
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, so such marks are not necessary. The only exception occurs when you have dropped words at the end of the final quoted sentence. In such cases, put three ellipsis dots before the closing quotation mark.
using sources responsibly: Make sure 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 to explain a confusing reference or to keep a sentence grammatical in the context of your own writing.
According to Albert Castel, “It can be reasonably argued that he [Forrest] was justified in believing that the approaching steamships intended to aid the garrison [at Fort Pillow].”7
note: Use the word sic, italicized and in brackets, to indicate that an error in a quoted sentence appears in the original source. (An example appears below.) Do not overuse sic to call attention to errors in a source. Sometimes paraphrasing is a better option. (See P6-b).
Setting off long quotations
CMS style allows you some flexibility in deciding whether to set off a long quotation or run it into your text. For emphasis, you may want to set off a quotation of more than four or five typed lines of text; almost certainly you should set off quotations of ten or more lines. To set off a quotation, indent it one-half inch from the left margin and use the normal right margin. Double-space the indented 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.
In a letter home, Confederate officer Achilles V. Clark recounted what happened at Fort Pillow:
Words cannot describe the scene. The poor deluded negroes would run up to our men fall upon their knees and with uplifted hands scream for mercy but they were ordered to their feet and then shot down. The whitte [sic] men fared but little better. . . . I with several others tried to stop the butchery and at one time had partially succeeded, but Gen. Forrest ordered them shot down like dogs, and the carnage continued.8