Readers need to move from your words to the words of a source without feeling a jolt. Avoid dropping direct quotations into your text without warning. Instead, provide clear signal phrases, including at least the author’s name and the date of publication. A signal phrase indicates the boundary between your words and the source’s words and can also tell readers why a source is trustworthy.

DROPPED QUOTATION

Obesity was once considered in a very different light. “For many years, obesity was approached as it if were either a moral failing or evidence of underlying psychopathology” (Yanovski & Yanovski, 2002, p. 592).

QUOTATION WITH SIGNAL PHRASE (IN COLOR)

As researchers Yanovski and Yanovski (2002) have explained, obesity was once considered “either a moral failing or evidence of underlying psychopathology” (p. 592).