Extra Notes
Quoting Material
What is quoting?
Taking the exact words from an original source is called quoting. You should quote material
when you believe the way the original author expresses an idea is the most effective means of
communicating the point you want to make. If you want to borrow an idea from an author, but do
not need his or her exact words, you should try paraphrasing instead of quoting.
How often should I quote?
Most of the time, paraphrasing and summarizing your sources is sufficient (but remember that
you still have to cite them!). If you think it’s important to quote something, an excellent rule of
thumb is that for every line you quote, you should have at least two lines analyzing it.
How do I incorporate quotations in my paper?
Most of the time, you can just identify a source and quote from it. Sometimes, however, you will
need to modify the words or format of the quotation in order to fit in your paper. Whenever you
change the original words of your source, you must indicate that you have done so. Otherwise,
you would be claiming the original author used words that he or she did not use. But be careful
not to change too many words! You could accidentally change the meaning of the quotation, and
falsely claim the author said something they did not.
For example, let's say you want to quote from the following passage in an essay called "United
Shareholders of America," by Jacob Weisberg:
The citizen-investor serves his fellow citizens badly by his inclination to withdraw from the
community. He tends to serve himself badly as well. He does so by focusing his pursuit of
happiness on something that very seldom makes people happy in the way they expect it to.
When you quote, you generally want to be as concise as possible. Keep only the material that is
strictly relevant to your own ideas. So here you would not want to quote the middle sentence,
since it is repeated again in the more informative last sentence. However, just skipping it would
not work -- the final sentence would not make sense without it. So, you have to change the
wording a little bit. In order to do so, you will need to use some editing symbols. Your quotation
might end up looking like this:
In his essay, “United Shareholders of America,” Jacob Weisberg insists that “The citizeninvestor serves his fellow citizens badly by his inclination to withdraw from the community. He
tends to serve himself badly... by focusing his pursuit of happiness on something that very
seldom makes people happy in the way they expect it to.”
“He tends to serve himself badly...by focusing his pursuit of happiness on [money].”
The brackets around the word [money] indicate that you have substituted that word for other
words the author used. To make a substitution this important, however, you had better be sure
that [money] is what the final phrase meant -- if the author intentionally left it ambiguous, you
would be significantly altering his meaning. That would make you guilty of fraudulent
attribution. In this case, however, the paragraph following the one quoted explains that the author
is referring to money, so it is okay.
As a general rule, it is okay to make minor grammatical and stylistic changes to make the quoted
material fit in your paper, but it is not okay to significantly alter the structure of the material or
its content.
Quoting Within Quotes
When you have "embedded quotes," or quotations within quotations, you should switch from the
normal quotation marks ("") to single quotation marks ('') to show the difference. For example, if
an original passage by John Archer reads:
The Mountain Coyote has been described as a “wily” and “single-minded” predator by zoologist
Lma Warner.
your quotation might look like this:
As John Archer explains, “The Mountain Coyote has been described as a 'wily' and 'singleminded' predator by zoologist Lma Warner.”
How do I include long quotes in my paper?
The exact formatting requirements for long quotations differ depending on the citation style. In
general, however, if you are quoting more than 3 lines of material, you should do the following:
1. change the font to one noticeably smaller (in a document that is mostly 12 point font, you
should use a 10 point font, for example)
2. double indent the quotation -- that means adjusting the left and right margins so that they
are about one inch smaller than the main body of your paper.
3. if you have this option in your word-processor, "left-justify" the text. That means make it
so that each line begins in the same place, creating a straight line on the left side of the
quotation, while the right side is jagged.
4. do NOT use quotation marks for the entire quotation -- the graphic changes you have
made already (changing the font, double indenting, etc.) are enough to indicate that the
material is quoted. For quotations within that quotation, use normal quotation marks, not
single ones.
5. you might want to skip 1.5 times the line-spacing you are using in the document before
you begin the quotation and after it. This is optional and depends on the style preferred
by your instructor.
For example, a properly-formatted long quotation in a document might look like this:
Akutagawa complicates the picture of himself as mere “reader on the verge of writing his own
text,” by having his narrated persona actually finish authoring the work in which he appears. In the
forty-ninth segment of the text, entitled “A Stuffed Swan,” he writes:
Using all of his remaining strength, he tried to write his autobiography. Yet it was not an easy task
for him. This was due to his still lingering sense of pride and skepticism... After finishing “A
Fool's Life,” he accidentally discovered a suffered swan in a used goods store. Although it stood
with its head raised, even its yellowed wings had been eaten by insects. He thought of his entire
life and felt tears and cruel laughter welling up inside. All that remained for him was madness or
suicide.
With this gesture Akutagawa ironizes the impossibility of truly writing the self by emphasizing the
inevitable split that must occur between writing and written “self,” the Akutagawa still writing “A
Fool's Life” cannot possibly be identical with the narrated persona which has finished the work.
How to paraphrase
Let's say that you want to introduce information from another source (a book, a journal article, or
website, for example) into your paper. You could approach this by quoting the work directly or
try to convey the information from the original source in your paper by rephrasing it in your own
words. This latter approach is paraphrasing.
Let's take a moment to make a clear distinction between the two:
Quoting: To quote is to include the identical wording from the original source in your paper.
Quoted material in your paper is distinguished from your own words by the use of " " or by
indenting the quoted text (if quoting a longer passage). In addition to quotation marks or
indenting, all quoted material should also be cited, using either footnotes, endnotes, or in-text
citation.
Paraphrasing: To paraphrase is to include the ideas or information from an original source in
your paper by rephrasing those ideas or information in your own words. The key to successful
paraphrasing is to use as few words as possible from the original text--be mindful not to change
the meaning that you are trying to convey as you rephrase--and to cite your paraphrase. Without
proper citation, your paraphrase could be construed as plagiarism.
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READING 1
ACKNOWLEDGING SOURCES IN ACADEMIC WRITING
Much of your written work at university is based on the ideas of other writers. Whenever you
have taken something from another author (that is to say, you have taken an author’s theory,
opinion, idea, example, conclusion, or findings), you must say who you took it from, and where
the original can be found. In other words, you must acknowledge and cite your sources. This is
important whether or not you use the author’s own words.
Why acknowledge your sources?
1. to show that you have read and understood the research published in your area of interest;
2. to lend authority to what you are writing;
3. to strengthen your argument;
4. to support your own ideas;
5. to provide details or background to what you are writing;
6. to avoid the charge of plagiarism.
What is plagiarism?
If you don’t acknowledge sources you may be accused of plagiarism. Plagiarism is the act of
using another person’s ideas as if they are your own. It’s a very serious breach of academic
etiquette. Your assignment will be given a fail mark, and in extreme cases, you may fail your
course. It doesn’t matter whether the original words or ideas are those of a published writer, or
those of another student—you must not copy without giving your source.
How do you acknowledge your sources?
Rule number one: Always ask your tutor for his/her preferred referencing system and style for
any assignment.
Rule number two: Whatever system and style you use, use it consistently.
Rule number three: Make sure that every text reference appears in the reference list, and that
every item in the reference list is mentioned at least once in the assignment.
Rule number four: Make sure that the references that appear in the text have the same spellings
and dates as the ones in the reference list.
The reference list/bibliography: At the end of an assignment you should give a list of all the
sources you have referred to. Your reference list/bibliography must provide full and accurate
details, as it is the means by which the reader can follow up your sources.
Important standard referencing conventions:
 An entry must consist of author(s), date of publication (full date for daily or weekly
publications, year only for others), title details, publisher details.
 Entries must be in alphabetical order of surname.
 Book title must include edition (other than first) and any other details given on the title
page
 Journal title must include volume, number
The important things are:
 always follow your lecturer's preferences;
 always be consistent.
Source: http://www.canberra.edu.au/studyskills/writing/sources [Adapted]
READING 2
READING 3
READING 4
HARVARD REFERENCING FOR MAIN CATEGORIES
1. The required elements for a book reference are:
Author, Initials., Year. Title of book. Edition. (Only include this if not the first edition) Place of
publication (this must be a town or city, not a country): Publisher.
For example:
2. For chapters of edited books the required elements for a reference are:
Chapter author(s) surname(s) and initials. Year of chapter. Title of chapter followed by In: Book
editor(s) initials first followed by surnames with ed. Or eds. after the last name. Year of book.
Title of book. Place of publication: Publisher. Chapter number or first and last page numbers
followed by fullstop.
For example:
Samson, C., 1970. Problems of information studies in history. In: S. Stone, ed. 1980. Humanities
information research. Sheffield: CRUS, pp.44-68.
Smith, J., 1975. A source of information. In: W. Jones, ed. 2000. One hundred and one ways to
find information about health. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ch.2.
3. For journal articles the required elements for a reference are:
Author, Initials., Year. Title of article. Full Title of Journal, Volume number (Issue / Part
number), Page numbers.
For example: A journal article
4. For an article from a web based magazine or journal, which is freely available over
the web, the required elements for a reference are:
Authors, Initials., Year . Title of article, Full Title of Magazine, [online] Available at: web
address (quote the exact URL for the article) [Accessed date].
For example:
Kipper, D., 2008. Japan’s new dawn, Popular Science and Technology, [online] Available
at:<http://www.popsci.com/popsci37b144110vgn/html> [Accessed 22
June 2009].
5. For newspaper articles the required elements for a reference are:
Author, Initials., Year. Title of article or column header. Full Title of Newspaper, Day and month
before page number and column line.
For example: A newspaper article
6. For newspaper articles found in online newspapers, the required elements for a
reference are:
Author or corporate author, Year. Title of document or page. Name of newspaper, [type of
medium] Additional date information. Available at: url [Accessed date].
For example:
Chittenden, M., Rogers, L. and Smith, D., 2003. Focus: ‘Targetitis ails NHS. Times Online,
[online]1 June. Available at:
<http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/scotland/article1138006.ece > [Accessed 17 March
2005].
7. For websites found on the worldwide web the required elements for a reference are:
Authorship or Source, Year. Title of web document or web page. [type of medium] (date of
update if available) Available at: <include web site address/URL (Uniform Resource Locator)
>[Accessed date].
For example:
8. For conference paper the required elements for a reference are:
Authorship, Year, Full title of conference paper, In: followed by editor or name of organization,
Full title of conference. Location, Date, Place of publication: Publisher.
For example:
Brown, J., 2005. Evaluating surveys of transparent governance. In: UNDESA (United Nations
Department of Economic and Social Affairs), 6th Global forum on reinventing government:
towards participatory and
transparent governance. Seoul, Republic of Korea 24-27 May 2005. New York: United Nations.
9. For brochure/ pamphlet the required elements for a reference are:
Author or authoring body, the date if available. Title of brochure. [medium] Place of publication:
Publisher.
The publisher’s name may be abbreviated if it is also the author.
For example:
Anglia Ruskin University, 2007. Using the Cochrane Library. [brochure] Cambridge: Anglia
Ruskin University.
New South Wales Dept of Primary Industries, 2005. Saltwater recreational fishing in New South
Wales: rules & regulations summary. [ brochure] New South Wales: NSWDPI.
REFERENCES WITH MISSING DETAILS
Occasionally it may not be possible to identify an author, place or publisher.
This applies particularly to what is known as ‘grey literature’, such as some government
documents, leaflets and other less official material.
Anon author anonymous or not identifiable
s.l. no place of publication (Latin: sine loco)
s.n. no named publisher (Latin: sine nomine)
n.d. no date