LESSON 4: HOW TO QUOTE OTHER AUTHORS

HOW MUCH SHOULD I QUOTE?

The focus of your essay should be on your understanding of the topic. If you include too much
quotation in your essay, you will crowd out your own ideas. Consider quoting a passage from one
of your sources if any of the following conditions holds:

1 The language of the passage is particularly elegant or powerful or memorable.

2 You wish to confirm the credibility of your argument by enlisting the support of an
authority on your topic.

3 The passage is worthy of further analysis.

Condition 3 is especially useful in essays for literature courses. If an argument or a factual

• paraphrasing the passage if you wish to convey the points in the passage at roughly the
same level of detail as in the original

• summarizing the relevant passage if you wish to sketch only the most essential points in
the passage .

WHY IS IT IMPORTANT TO IDENTIFY MY SOURCES?

Quotations come from somewhere, and your reader will want to know where. Don’t just
parachute quotations into your essay without providing at least some indication of who your
source is.
HOW DO I INTRODUCE A SHORT QUOTATION? The following offers just one way of
introducing a quotation:

The ancient Greeks never saw a need to justify wars that were waged outside the walls of the city
state. As Hannah Arendt (2009: 12) points out in On Revolution, “we must turn to Roman
antiquity to find the first justification of war, together with the first notion that there are just and
unjust wars”. Yet the Roman conception of a just war differs sharply from more modern
conceptions.

Since the quotation is relatively short, the brief introduction works. You could, however,
strengthen your analysis by demonstrating the significance of the passage own within your
argument. Introducing your quotation with a full sentence would help you assert greater control
over the material:

The ancient Greeks never saw a need to justify wars that were waged outside the walls of the city
state. In On Revolution, Hannah Arendt (2009: 12) points to the role the Romans played in laying
the foundation for later thinking about the ethics of waging war: “we must turn to Roman
antiquity to find the first justification of war, together with the first notion that there are just and
unjust wars”. Yet the Roman conception of a just war differs sharply from more modern
conceptions.

In these two examples, observe the forms of punctuation used to introduce the quotations. When
you introduce a quotation with a full sentence, you should always place a colon at the end of the
introductory sentence. When you introduce a quotation with an incomplete sentence, you usually
place a comma after the introductory phrase.

If you are blending the quotation into your own sentence using the conjuction that, do not use any
punctuation at all: Arendt (2009: 12) writes that “we must turn to Roman antiquity to find the
first justification of war . . .”
WHAT VERBS AND PHRASES CAN I USE TO INTRODUCE MY QUOTATIONS?

Familiarize yourself with the various verbs commonly used to introduce quotations. Here is a
partial list:

argues points out comments writes concludes counters maintains insists explains
suggests observes notes states demonstrates assert claims says reveals

Each verb has its own nuance. Make sure that the nuance matches your specific aims in
introducing the quotation.

There are other ways to begin quotations. Here are three common phrasings:

In the words of X, . . . According to X, . . . In X’s view, . . .

Vary the way you introduce quotations to avoid sounding monotonous. But never sacrifice
precision of phrasing for the sake of variety.

HOW DO I INTRODUCE A LONG QUOTATION?

If your quotation is lengthy, you should almost always introduce it with a full sentence that helps
capture how it fits into your argument. If your quotation is longer than four lines, do not place it
in quotation marks. Instead, set it off as a block quotation:

Although Dickens never shied away from the political controversies of his time, he never, in
Orwell’s view, identified himself with any political program:

The truth is that Dickens’ criticism of society is almost exclusively moral. Hence his lack
of any constructive suggestion anywhere in his work. He attacks the law,parliamentary
government, the educational system and so forth, without ever clearly suggesting what he
would put in their places. Of course it is not necessarily the business of a novelist, or a
satirist, to make constructive suggestions, but the point is that Dickens’ attitude is at
bottom not even destructive. . . . For in reality his target is not so much society as human
nature. (1988: 416)

The full-sentence introduction to a block quotation helps demonstrate your grasp of the source
material, and it adds analytical depth to your essay. But the introduction alone is not enough.
Long quotations almost invariably need to be followed by extended analysis. Never allow the
quotation to do your work for you.

HOW DO I LET MY READER KNOW I’VE ALTERED MY SOURCES?

If you need to alter your quotations in any way, be sure to indicate just how you have done so. If
you remove text, then replace the missing text with an ellipsis—three periods between brackets:

In The Mirror and the Lamp, Abrams (2005: 5) comments that the “diversity of aesthetic theories
[. . .] makes the task of the historian a very difficult one”.

If you need to alter or replace text from the original, enclose the added text within square
brackets. You may, for example, need to alter text to ensure that pronouns agree with their
antecedents. Do not write,

Gertrude asks her son Hamlet to “cast your nighted colour off” (1.2.68).

Square brackets allow you to absorb Gertrude’s words into your own statement:

Gertrude asks her son Hamlet to “cast [his] nighted colour off” (1.2.68).

HOW IS PUNCTUATION AFFECTED BY QUOTATION?

You must preserve the punctuation of a quoted passage, or else you must enclose in square
brackets any punctuation marks that are your own.
Commas and periods never go outside a quotation mark. They are always absorbed as part of the
quotation, whether they belong to you or to the author you are quoting: “I am a man / more
sinned against than sinning,” Lear pronounces in Act 3, Scene 2 (59-60).

However, stronger forms of punctuation such as question marks and exclamation marks go inside
the quotation if they belong to the author, and outside if they do not:

Bewildered, Lear asks the fool, “Who is it that can tell me who I am?” (1.4.227).
Why is Lear so rash as to let his “‘two daughters’ dowers digest the third” (1.1.127)?

Finally, use single quotation marks for all quotations within quotations:

When Elizabeth reveals that her younger sister has eloped, Darcy drops his customary reserve: “‘I
am grieved, indeed,’ cried Darcy, ‘grieved — shocked’” (Austen 2009: 34).