Every student knows that an essay benefit from quoting sources to share with readers the thoughts and feelings of experts and to demonstrate that the student has actually read the sources being cited and understood the information and analysis in those sources. However, many students have difficulty with the mechanics of quoting correctly, sometimes coming dangerously close to plagiarism because of some fairly common mistakes that plague even the best academic writers.
In order to make sure that your paper quotes not just correctly but also effectively, let’s take a look at some tips for great quotations.
- Know what is and isn’t a quote. This might seem obvious, but many people don’t know exactly what counts as a quote. A quotation is the use of the exact words of another person. There is no minimum number of words for a quotation, though generally they must be important words. An article like “a” can even be a quote if the important part of a sentence is that “a” something is involved, rather than “the” something. There is also no maximum length for a quotation, but in academic writing, it is generally the case that you shouldn’t quote more than a few sentences unless it is of extreme importance. For publication purposes, permission is required to use length quotations because of copyright law. Anything that is not the exact words of a source is not a quotation. Paraphrases and summaries report what a source said, but use different words. One danger point occurs when students mix some words from an author with some of their own. These partial quotations run the risk of plagiarism if you don’t clearly distinguish between them with quotation marks around the other writer’s words.
- Know when to use quotation marks. In general, quoting involves placing borrowed words in quotation marks. But this is only the general rule. There are some exceptions. First, the marks you use depend on where you are. In the United States, “double quotation marks” are used for most quotations, while in the U.K., ‘single quotation marks’ are standard. Quotation marks should not include explanatory text you added yourself, as in this example: “The sky,” Dr. Real Name writes, “is blue.” In this case, the words Dr. Real Name writes are words explaining the quote and are not part of the quote. Just to make it more complicated, there is another rule to remember: When a quotation is lengthy (generally three typed lines or more than 40 words), it is not placed in quotation marks at all but is set off from the text in its own paragraph and indented half an inch from the left margin as a “block quote.”
- Know how much to quote. This is a tougher one because it involves a value judgment. Many writing guides have rules about quotations. Some common guidelines are to avoid quoting more than 100 words from a single source unless absolutely necessary, and to try to limit a single quotation to 50 words or fewer. As a general guideline, quotation should not make up more than 10-15% of an essay. These, however, are general guidelines, and there are always exceptions to the rule. For example, a literary criticism essay involving a close reading of a text will likely require more quotations to document its analysis than a standard research paper.
- Know how to use a quote in an essay. Many students mistakenly think that using a quote is as simple as pasting it in and calling it a day. However, you can’t assume that your readers will be familiar with the sources you cite or that they will have read the texts you quote. To ensure that your readers will understand each quote that you use, you should follow a simple format. Introduce a quote by explaining where it came from and who said it. Then, provide the quotation. After the quotation, explain to the reader what the quotation means by showing how it connects to the topic sentence of the paragraph and to the thesis of the essay.
The best time to use quotations is when another writer has said something better than you could say it yourself, or when the original expression is essential to understanding the meaning of the original essay writer. Ultimately, quotations are a great way to enhance an essay by providing a break from the authorial voice and providing other writers’ expressions of their own ideas in the original words. With the right selection of quotes, your essay will truly shine. Additional notes – click on essaylab.com to know what a 1000 word essay looks like.
Happy Writing!
