December 2012
English Department Writing Workshop
How to Use Quotations in Your Research Paper1
I. INTRODUCTION:
To support your arguments and analysis, you will necessarily refer to primary sources
(the poem, play or novel under discussion), and in addition you may also use
secondary sources (critical works).
A primary or secondary source may be used by direct quotation, summary or
paraphrase. In summary or paraphrase you do not merely change a word here or
there but you use your own words and syntax throughout. No quotation marks are
used, but the source must be acknowledged.
In a quotation, whether from a literary text or a critical source, the exact words of the
original text are used. The quotation must be accurate: do not change words, spelling
or punctuation unless you do so for the reasons and according to the rules discussed
below. Enclose the quotation in double quotation marks (i.e., “To be or not to be: that
is the question”) and then acknowledge. For a quotation within a quotation, use single
quotation marks for the inner quotation. With longer quotations, which are indented,
no quotation marks are used. In all cases, you must ensure that the connection
between your enclosing statement and the quotation is clear, logical and forceful. It is
extremely important to integrate the quotation grammatically into your own sentence
or paragraph: the standard techniques for doing so are illustrated below.
II. INTEGRATING SHORT QUOTATIONS INTO YOUR TEXT:
Do not just "parachute" quotations into your essay. The following passage is an
example of a poorly integrated quotation:
The ancient Greeks never saw a need to justify wars that were waged outside
the walls of the city state. "Hence we must turn to Roman antiquity to find the
first justification of war, together with the first notion that there are just and
1
This section on using quotations is adapted from "Using Quotations," by Jerry
Director of the University College Writing Centre, University of Toronto.
http://www.utoronto.ca/ucwriting/paraphrase.html
unjust wars" (Arendt 12). Yet the Roman conception of a just war differs
sharply from more modern conceptions.
When you are making decisions about how to integrate quotations into your essay,
you might imagine that you are reading the essay out loud to an audience. You would
not read the parenthetical note. Without some sort of introduction, your audience
would not even know that the statement about Roman antiquity was a quotation, let
alone where the quotation came from.
The following offers just one way of introducing the above quotation:
The ancient Greeks never saw a need to justify wars that were waged outside
the walls of the city state. As Hannah Arendt 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" (12). 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
within your own 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 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" (12).
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.
Arendt writes: "we must turn to Roman antiquity to find the first justification
of war...."
If you are blending the quotation into your own sentence using the conjunction that,
do not use any punctuation at all:
Arendt writes that "we must turn to Roman antiquity to find the first
justification of war . . .."
III. ADDITIONAL EXAMPLES OF HOW TO INTEGRATE QUOTATIONS:
A short poetry quotation of one line or less is written as part of your
sentence. For example, in a discussion of John Donne's poem "Batter my heart",
you may write as follows:
“Batter my heart, three-personed God” is a plea for salvation by a spiritually
impotent man.
or
“Batter my heart, three personed God” – the opening line in John Donne’s famous
sonnet – is a plea for salvation by a spiritually impotent man.
A poetry quotation of two lines may be integrated into the text or separated from
it. If the two lines are integrated, use a slant (/) to show the line break, two slants
for a stanza break (//) and retain the capital letter at the beginning of the second
line. For example, in the same Donne poem, you may write:
The poet feels entirely corrupted; he begs to be demolished, for he cannot be
repaired: “Batter my heart, three-personed God; for You / As yet but knock,
breathe, shine, and seek to mend" (lines 1-2).
A poetry quotation of more than two lines is separated from your text, indented
(somewhat more than paragraphs), single-spaced, written as the lines are printed
in the original and it appears without quotation marks:
Example:
The poem is built upon a series of paradoxes. The poet must be destroyed before
he can be rebuilt, defeated before he can be victorious:
Take me to You, imprison me, for I,
Except You enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.
(lines 12-14)
Short quotations of prose (less than three lines) can be integrated into your text:
Stephen Dedalus will not pay false homage to the symbols of authority, and he
articulates his position thus: “I will not serve that in which I no longer believe,
whether it call itself my home, my fatherland or my church” (Portrait of the
Artist as a Young Man 23).
Long quotations of prose (more than three lines) are set off from your main
text and indented. These are known as block quotations. No quotation marks are
used since the quotation is sufficiently set off from your text by indentation.
Make sure there is a clear connection between the quotation and the body of your
paper:
Example:
The opposition between activity and passivity, between life and death, is
expressed also in the structure of the story. As literary critic Hart points out:
Joyce allows the opposition to be reflected in the form of the story….
The first section, much the longest, is entirely lacking in action, either
physical or psychological; Eveline’s thoughts simply succeed one
another according to the process of free association. The brief flurry of
action in the last makes the victory of paralysis all the more evident.
(24-25)
IV. VERBS & PHRASES TO USE WHEN INTRODUCING
QUOTATIONS INTO YOUR TEXT:
Familiarize yourself with the various verbs commonly used to introduce quotations.
Here is a partial list:
argues
writes
points out
concludes comments notes
maintains suggests
insists
observes
counters asserts
states
claims
demonstrates says
explains
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.
V. HOW DO YOU LET YOUR READER KNOW YOU'VE ALTERED
YOUR SOURCE?
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 surrounded by spaces:
In The Mirror and the Lamp, Abrams comments that the "diversity of
aesthetic theories . . . makes the task of the historian a very difficult one" (5).
Many people overuse ellipses at the beginning and end of quotations. Use an ellipsis in
either place only when your reader might otherwise mistake an incomplete sentence
for a complete one:
Abraham Lincoln begins "The Gettysburg Address" with a reminder of the act
upon which the United States was founded: "Four score and seven years ago our
fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation . . ." (1).
Do not use an ellipsis if you are merely borrowing a phrase from the original:
In "The Gettysburg Address" Abraham Lincoln reminds his listeners of the
principles that had inspired the creation of "a new nation" (1).
It is extremely important that all quotations fit grammatically into your sentence, so
that both can be read as a unit. To achieve integration, you may have to change the
grammar of the quotation slightly. 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).
Alternatively, you can include Gertrude's original phrasing in its entirety as long as the
introduction to the quotation is not fully integrated with the quotation. The introduction
can be an independent clause:
Gertrude implores her son Hamlet to stop mourning the death of his father: "cast
your nighted colour off" (1.2.68).
Or it can be an incomplete sentence:
Gertrude implores her son Hamlet, "cast your nighted colour off" (1.2.68).
December 2012
English Department Writing Workshop
Paraphrasing & Summarizing2
To paraphrase means to express someone else's ideas in your own language. To
summarize means to distill only the most essential points of someone else's work.
Paraphrase and summary are indispensable tools in essay writing because they allow
you to include other people's ideas without cluttering up your essay with quotations.
They help you take greater control of your essay. Consider relying on either tool when
an idea from one of your sources is important to your essay but the wording is not.
You should be guided in your choice of which tool to use by considerations of space.
But above all, think about how much of the detail from your source is relevant to your
argument. If all your reader needs to know is the bare bones, then summarize.
Ultimately, be sure not to rely too heavily on either paraphrase or summary. Your
ideas are what matter most. Allow yourself the space to develop those ideas.
I. HOW TO PARAPHRASE:
Whenever you paraphrase, remember these two points:
1. You must provide a reference.
2. The paraphrase must be entirely in your own words. You must do more than
merely substitute phrases here and there. You must also completely alter the
sentence structure.
It can be difficult to find new words for an idea that is already well expressed. The
following strategy will make the job of paraphrasing a lot easier:
1. When you are at the note-taking stage, and you come across a passage that
may be useful for your essay, do not copy the passage verbatim unless you
think you will want to quote it.
2
This section on paraphrasing & summarizing was written by Jerry Plotnick, Director
of the University College Writing Centre, University of Toronto.
http://www.utoronto.ca/ucwriting/paraphrase.html
2. If you think you will want to paraphrase the passage, make a note only of the
author's basic point. You don't even need to use full sentences.
3. In your note, you should already be translating the language of the original
into your own words. What matters is that you capture the original idea.
4. Make sure to include the page number of the original passage so that you can
make a proper reference later on.
When it comes time to write the paper, rely on your notes rather than on the author's
work. You will find it much easier to avoid borrowing from the original passage
because you will not have recently seen it. Follow this simple sequence:
1. Convert the ideas from your notes into full sentences.
2. Provide a reference.
3. Go back to the original to ensure that (a) your paraphrase is accurate and (b)
you have truly said things in your own words.
Let's look at examples of illegitimate and legitimate paraphrase. The original passage
is from Oliver Sacks' essay "An Anthropologist on Mars":
The cause of autism has also been a matter of dispute. Its incidence is about one
in a thousand, and it occurs throughout the world, its features remarkably
consistent even in extremely different cultures. It is often not recognized in the
first year of life, but tends to become obvious in the second or third year.
Though Asperger regarded it as a biological defect of affective contact—innate,
inborn, analogous to a physical or intellectual defect—Kanner tended to view it
as a psychogenic disorder, a reflection of bad parenting, and most especially of
a chillingly remote, often professional, "refrigerator mother." At this time,
autism was often regarded as "defensive" in nature, or confused with childhood
schizophrenia. A whole generation of parents—mothers, particularly—were
made to feel guilty for the autism of their children.
What follows is an example of illegitimate paraphrase:
The cause of the condition autism has been disputed. It occurs in approximately
one in a thousand children, and it exists in all parts of the world, its
characteristics strikingly similar in vastly differing cultures. The condition is
often not noticeable in the child's first year, yet it becomes more apparent as the
child reaches the ages of two or three. Although Asperger saw the condition as a
biological defect of the emotions that was inborn and therefore similar to a
physical defect, Kanner saw it as psychological in origin, as reflecting poor
parenting and particularly a frigidly distant mother. During this period, autism
was often seen as a defense mechanism, or it was misdiagnosed as childhood
schizophrenia. An entire generation of mothers and fathers (but especially
mothers) were made to feel responsible for their offspring's autism (Sacks 24748).
Most of these sentences do little more than substitute one phrase for another. An
additional problem with this passage is that the only citation occurs at the very end of
the last sentence in the paragraph. The reader might be misled into thinking that the
earlier sentences were not also indebted to Sacks' essay.
The following represents a legitimate paraphrase of the original passage:
In "An Anthropologist on Mars," Sacks lists some of the known facts about
autism. We know, for example, that the condition occurs in roughly one out of
every thousand children. We also know that the characteristics of autism do not
vary from one culture to the next. And we know that the condition is difficult to
diagnose until the child has entered its second or third year of life. As Sacks
points out, often a child who goes on to develop autism will still appear perfectly
normal at the age of one (247).
Notice that this passage makes explicit right from the beginning that the ideas belong
to Sacks, and the passage's indebtedness to him is signaled in more than one place.
The single parenthetical note at the end of each paragraph is therefore all the citation
that is needed. The inclusion of explicit references to Sacks not only makes the job of
providing citations easier. It also strengthens the passage by clarifying the source of
its facts and ideas. And it adds an analytical dimension to the paragraph: the passage
doesn't just reiterate the points in Sacks' passage but lays out the structure of his
argument. Note that the paraphrase splits the original into two separate paragraphs to
accentuate the two-part structure of Sacks' argument. Finally, notice that not all the
details from the original passage are included in the paraphrase.
II. HOW TO SUMMARIZE:
Summary moves much farther than paraphrase away from point-by-point translation.
When you summarize a passage, you need first to absorb the meaning of the passage
and then to capture in your own words the most important elements from the original
passage. A summary is necessarily shorter than a paraphrase.
Here is a summary of the passage from "An Anthropologist on Mars":
In "An Anthropologist on Mars," Sacks notes that although there is little disagreement
on the chief characteristics of autism, researchers have differed considerably on its
causes. As he points out, Asperger saw the condition as an innate defect in the child's
ability to connect with the external world, whereas Kanner regarded it as a
consequence of harmful childrearing practices (247-48).