17 Quoting and Citing References

What Is Quoting?

In both summaries and paraphrases, we are talking about something that someone else has said. In summaries, we are pointing out their main ideas and restating them in a shorter piece. In paraphrasing, we are just saying the same thing but in different words.

But what about when you want to use the words that you see somewhere without changing them? It’s possible to do this without plagiarizing, but you have to know how to do it right. You do this by quoting–in other words, you take the words that someone says, put them in quotation marks (” “), and make it clear where the original quote came from.

Quoting is a good thing to do when the words do a really good job of showing the meaning and paraphrasing wouldn’t do quite as well. But it’s easy to do this too much! A good rule to remember is that no more than 10% of your paper should be quotes. So if your paper is 500 words long, you shouldn’t have more than 50 words quoted!

What Does It Look Like?

Here’s an example:

American author Zig Ziglar once said, “People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing–that’s why we recommend it daily.”

So what did we just do there? Notice that the words that are in quotation marks are exactly the words that someone else said. In this case, that person is American author Zig Ziglar (yes, that’s really his name). When we quote from someone else, we want to show who said it, so we want to include their name in the same sentence. We also put a comma after the part of the sentence that introduces the quote, and then we put quotation marks both at the beginning and the end of the quote. We put our punctuation inside the last quotation mark.

There are other ways to introduce a quote. In the examples below, the author’s name goes in the blank spaces.

• According to _____,
• As ______ asserts,
• _____ explains,
• _____ states,
• In ______’s words,

Rules for Quoting

There are a lot of different rules for quoting, but here are the most important rules to remember:

• Make sure the quote is exactly right. Don’t change anything in the quotation marks!
• Tell the reader who said it originally. Try to do this in the same sentence where the quote appears, like in the example above.
• Never just put a quote in the middle of your paper by itself. You always need to introduce a quote with a phrase called a signal phrase. This tells the reader who said the quote and prepares the reader.
• Always put quotation marks at both the beginning and end of the quote. Don’t forget the ones at the end!
• Punctuation marks almost always go inside the quotation marks.

Try It Out

Write about a Famous Quote

Read the quotes below, and choose one that you like.

Rewrite this quote as a sentence that has the speaker’s name, a signal phrase, and the entire quote in quotation marks. Follow the rules and the examples above, and pay close attention to punctuation.

After you write the sentence with the quote, write three more sentences telling why you chose that quote and what it means to you. In other words, why do you like it, and how is it connected to your life?

Choosing When to Quote or Paraphrase

Now that you understand the rules for how to quote something correctly, let’s think about when you need to do this in your writing and why. When you are writing about something someone else wrote or said (such as a book, news article, or video), you have a choice to paraphrase (say the same idea in different words) or quote (say the same thing with the same words). So how do you choose which one to use?

Paraphrasing is a better idea when:

• you want to shorten or summarize the ideas that you are discussing
• the original language is difficult or uninteresting for your audience
• the specific words used in the original version are not important to repeat

Most of the time, paraphrasing works better than quoting in a paper because you only need to discuss the main or general idea in your own writing.

However, quoting might be a better idea when:

• the language is very specific and paraphrasing changes the meaning
• the language is very interesting or beautiful
• a person is talking about a personal experience

Tip: Don’t quote too much in your writing. A good rule to follow is that no more than 10% of your essay should be directly quoted from another source. Too much quoting without adding your own words makes your essay sound like you aren’t confident about the subject, and it doesn’t let your reader hear your voice as a writer.

Quoting Inside a Paraphrase

You can also quote smaller sections of a reading inside something you are paraphrasing. You can do this when you want to paraphrase the main part of the meaning but still keep some of the original words. Notice that in the examples below, only phrases, not entire sentences, are inside the quotation marks.

She was very clear that she loved the book, calling it “the best thing since sliced bread.”

According to Johnson, online education is both “a blessing in disguise” and “a potentially dangerous situation.”

Try It Out

A good way to see times when quoting works well is to compare quotes and paraphrases in other people’s writing. For this activity, you will read a news article and decide why the author decided to quote or paraphrase.

1. Skim the news articles in the VOA News site (or another English-language news site that you like) and choose one that is interesting to you.
2. Read the article carefully, and take notes on a sheet of paper about what you see that is paraphrased and what you see that is quoted.
3. Look only at the sections that are direct quotes. Why do you think the author chose to use quotes instead of a paraphrase in these sections?
4. Scan the article only for things in quotation marks. How much of the article is a direct quote? How much of the article is a summary or paraphrase of the topic? Why do you think this is?
5. Compare your article and your notes with a partner. What did your partner notice? Is it the same as or similar to what you saw?

Quoting and Paraphrasing a Reading

Use what you’ve learned about quoting and paraphrasing to write a one-paragraph summary of the example reading below. Read the text below carefully, and make sure you understand it well before you begin writing.

1. What is the main idea of the reading? Summarize it in 2-3 sentences using your own words.
2. Re-read the text, and write down any words, phrases, or sentences that you think are especially important or specific.
3. Choose one sentence to quote in a summary. This should be a sentence that is very connected to the main idea of the reading. Use your list of words and phrases from the last step to help you choose which one to quote.
4. Re-write the summary paragraph of the reading, and include the sentence with the quote you chose.
5. Compare your paragraph with a partner. Discuss why you chose the section you quoted.