Quoting Resources

When you directly quote from someone else's printed or spoken words, you will need to acknowledge both the author of those words as well as their source. Quotes will be formatted in APA, MLA, or Chicago style, depending on the preferences of your teacher. MLA format is the most commonly used format for quotations in the body of a paper. This format follows the author-page method of citation. Simply put, what this means that the author's last name and the page number(s) from which the quotation is taken must appear in the text, and the book or journal article from which you obtained that quote must appear in your bibliography.

Whatever style you choose to format your quotations in, MLA or otherwise, remember to keep it consistent throughout your paper. And beware the trap of over-quoting. If you incorporate too many quotes in your paper, especially long quotes, it may open you up to accusations of plagiarism. And an overabundance of quotes, especially if you quote heavily from a single source, will certainly indicate to your teacher that you did insufficient original research and writing.

Short Quotes

Short quotations are those that are fewer then four lines of text. They should be incorporated within the main body of your text and ought to be enclosed by double quotation marks. After the quote (outside the closing double quotation mark) comes the parenthetical citation. This is the author and the page number of the book (or journal article) that the quote comes from, enclosed in parentheses. The author's name may appear either in the sentence itself or in parentheses following the quotation or paraphrase, but the page number(s) should always appear in the parentheses, not in the text of your sentence. If you are quoting from more then one source by the same author, then you need to include the title of the work in the parenthetical citation as well.

Examples:

According to some, dreams express "profound aspects of personality" (Foulkes 184), though others disagree.
According to Foulkes's study, dreams may express "profound aspects of personality" (184).
Is it possible that dreams may express "profound aspects of personality" (Foulkes 184)?
Lightenor has argued that computers are not useful tools for small children ("Too Soon" 38), though he has acknowledged that early exposure to computer games does lead to better small motor skill development in a child's second and third year ("Hand-Eye Development" 17).

Punctuation marks in the body of your paper should come after the parenthetical citation. Punctuation marks that are part of the quote should appear within the double quotation marks.

If the work you are quoting from has no author, then you should use an abbreviated version of the work's title. When quoting from non-print sources, such as films, TV series, pictures, or graphs, include the name that begins the entry for that work in your bibliography. If you are using a quote from a website, use the name of the person or the group that the website is associated with, as well as the URL of the page the quote can be found on.

Long Quotes

Quotes that are four lines or longer are not incorporated in the body of your text. These quotes should be set off from the rest of the text in a block of lines that is indented in an inch on both sides from your default margins. Any spacing that you have in your paper (single, 1.5 lines, or double) should be carried through in the long quote. Long quotes do not have quotation marks. Since they are not in-line quotes, they do not need the double quotation marks to set them off form the rest of your text. The parenthetical citation follows the same format as for the short quote, and should appear after the closing punctuation of the long quote.

Example:

Nelly Dean treats Heathcliff poorly and dehumanizes him throughout her narration:

They entirely refused to have it in bed with them, or even in their room, and I had no more sense, so, I put it on the landing of the stairs, hoping it would be gone on the morrow. By chance, or else attracted by hearing his voice, it crept to Mr. Earnshaw's door, and there he found it on quitting his chamber. Inquiries were made as to how it got there; I was obliged to confess, and in recompense for my cowardice and inhumanity was sent out of the house. (Brontë 78)

Quoting verse or lyrics

The only additional rules to remember when you are quoting poetry or song lyrics in your paper is that you need to maintain the original line breaks. And when you are quoting verses, the parenthetical citation includes the author and the line numbers, rather then the page number.

Examples:

Cullen concludes, "Of all the things that happened there/ That's all I remember" (11-12).
"Of all the things that happened there/ That's all I remember" (Cullen 11-12).
In her poem "Sources," Adrienne Rich explores the roles of women in shaping their world:

The faithful drudging child
the child at the oak desk whose penmanship,
hard work, style will win her prizes
becomes the woman with a mission, not to win prizes
but to change the laws of history. (23)

Is it okay to alter a quote?

Surprisingly enough, it is considered acceptable to alter a quote as long as you make it perfectly clear to your readers that you are doing so.

If you are adding words to a quote, you need to set them off in brackets to indicate that they are not part of the original quote.

Example:
Jan Harold Brunvand, in an essay on urban legends, states: "some individuals [who retell urban legends] make a point of learning every rumor or tale" (78).

If you are removing words from a quote, you need to indicate this by replacing those words with an ellipsis (three periods) enclosed in brackets. If there are already ellipsis marks in the quote you are using, do not enclose them in brackets. You should only bracket ellipsis marks that you are inserting to replace unnecessary words.

Example:
In an essay on urban legends, Jan Harold Brunvand notes that "some individuals make a point of learning every recent rumor or tale [...] and in a short time a lively exchange of details occurs" (78).

Useful resources:

OWL: Purdue's Online Writing Lab

All of the examples shown on this page are borrowed from OWL, Purdue's Online Writing Lab.