The Writing Brain
University of Exeter

Quoting Other Critics: Inserting Quotations

So why exactly do you perform research?  In a nutshell, you do it to earn some scholarly credibility by showing people that you’ve read up on the topic and know your stuff, and you do it because reading the work of other authors will stretch and deepen your own thinking.  As you research, you’ll discover that other people have made observations that support your points, add to your points, or make points that you can build on (see the Quick Essay Mnemonic).

Given this, once you have a collection of useful quotations, how do you interpolate them into your own writing?

First, a very useful rule of thumb is that, wherever possible, you should try to paraphrase rather than quote.  If an author has said something so wittily, so beautifully, or so memorably that you cannot retain its effect when you put it into your own words, by all means quote it.  Otherwise, paraphrase it.  Let’s say, for example, that on page 95 of his book John Smith has written, “Naked mole rats make an excellent subject for evolutionary study.”  You might incorporate this into your own essay in the following way:

John Smith suggests that naked mole rats are (paraphrase) an optimal species to use when studying evolution (95) (citation).

Paraphrasing is not plagiarism, because you cite the author and page where the reader can find the information. In the example above, you mention Smith in the sentence and give the page number in brackets at the end of the sentence, so you’re covered (note that if you give the author’s name in the course of the sentence, you don’t have to put it in the brackets).

Paraphrasing is not plagiarism, because you cite the author and page where the reader can find the information. In the example above, you mention Smith in the sentence and give the page number in brackets at the end of the sentence, so you’re covered (note that if you give the author’s name in the course of the sentence, you don’t have to put it in the brackets).

Sometimes, though, nothing but a quotation will do.  In those cases, the trick is to interpolate the quotation elegantly.  One very easy way to use this is to use “that”:

John Smith writes that “Naked mole rats are such an evolutionary marvel that they might as well be a gift from God” (78).

Smoothly done!  (Note that “that” does not get a comma after it, because it takes the place of a comma.)

But since repetition is no friend to good writing, you don’t want to use “that” all the time.

This is where “says” comes in handy:

John Smith writes that “Naked mole rats are such an evolutionary marvel that they might as well be a gift from God” (78).  Moreover, he says, “They aren’t ugly; they’re just aesthetically challenged” (52).

You can also stray from “says” (which is, after all, the most boring word to indicate speech).  Perhaps a critic “asserts,” or delicately “suggests”; perhaps he “states,” or perhaps she “indicates.”  These variants on “says” can add flavour to your essay, creating life and conversation:

John Smith argues that “Naked mole rats are such an evolutionary marvel that they might as well be a gift from God” (78). Albert Ruck deplores Smith’s remark, asserting that “levity has no place in science” (54), while Nicola Tono argues, “To bring God into evolutionary discussion is to undermine 150 years of research” (77).

Wow, things suddenly got way more exciting.

Finally, you have the option to set your quotations off using only punctuation. You can do this most easily with a colon.

John Smith points out that naked mole rats are strong: “they are capable of pulling 25 lbs of dirt” (32).

As you remember, a colon means, “And here it is”; in this case it means, “and here is the statement.”  Be careful!  Because a colon means “and here is the statement,” you can’t use it like this:

John Smith points out: “naked mole rats are capable of pulling 25 lbs of dirt” (30).

As John Smith points out: “naked mole rats are capable of pulling 25lbs. of dirt” (30).

If you try substituting “and here is the statement” for the colons in these sentences, you will see that it doesn’t work. A verb before a quotation takes a comma, not a colon.

If you’re feeling zesty, though, you can use punctuation with a quotation in different ways.  The two most common ways are to put a quotation between two commas as a parenthetical phrase, and to put a quotation in brackets:

John Smith admires the naked mole rat, which he calls “an evolutionary marvel” (78), but he is not awed by it.

John Smith admires the naked mole rat (which he calls “an evolutionary marvel” [78]), but he is not awed by it.

I also like to drop them between dashes:

All can recall Byron’s comic invocation of the muse in Don Juan – “Hail, Muse, etc.” (III.i)– but few recognise it as a parody of his similar, serious, invocation at the start of Childe Harold.

Finally, remember that you don’t have to introduce quotations with a word or a punctuation mark; you can just smoothly insert them into your sentence:

It is not often that one encounters “a guinea pig inside the physique of an elderly vampire,” but this is how Ian Albertson encourages us to envision the naked mole rat (10).

We may come to feel very insignificant if we contemplate “the vast and ancient majesty of the redwood tree” (Guthrie 23).

You will notice that in all the examples I have given above, I have placed my punctuation after my bracketed citation. If you have a quotation that is fewer than four lines long (poetry or prose), followed by a bracketed citation, close your quotation marks, then place your punctuation after the brackets.  Remember, though, that you do not have to put your citation immediately after the quotation: it is generally best to put it at the end of the clause in which the quotation appears, like this:

We may come to feel very insignificant if we contemplate “the vast and ancient majesty of the redwood tree” in comparison to ourselves and our life spans (Guthrie 23).

If you use a quotation that is four lines or more, you may introduce it in any of the ways described above, but you must set it off from the text of your essay.  Hit return, indent one or two indents on the left (indent all the lines), and at the end of the quotation place an ellipsis (…), a full stop, or (rarely) nothing at all.  Tab over once or twice, THEN put the bracketed citation.

Like this:

The connection between Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is complex and has been much discussed.  The two have variously been seen as psychological doubles, one man and his emanation, and a case of split personality.  Bernhard Jackson, however, suggests that

The confusion over the connection between Jekyll and Hyde may have another gemellogical root, as well. Twins joined at the forehead or sharing one head (janiceps twins) were not unknown in the nineteenth century. Janiceps twins rarely survive ex utero, for the simple reason that they share a brain. And here, perhaps, one finds a source for Jekyll’s “two natures that contended in the field of my consciousness,” for his sense of himself as both an actor in and an observer of Hyde’s deeds (49, 53), and for those “shared…phenomena of consciousness.(punctuation)” (317) (citation)

With block quotations, don’t put your punctuation after the citation.  A handy mnemonic device may be:

Fewer than four lines? Citation, then punctuation.

More than four lines?  Punctuation, then citation.

Citation, and styles of citation, are not just meant to torture you: they are designed to show the reader where she can find the information you have just given.  Because of this, in brackets in the text you give information that will allow the reader to find your source in your works cited, and the page number on which the quotation can be found in that source. The goal of citation is simply to give the information that will lead the reader to the right place in the source: that’s it.

Practical Solutions:

If you aren’t sure if you’ve plagiarised, go back and re-read your essay. Cite anything that comes too close for comfort to the plagiarism wire.

If your sentences containing quotations feel clunky or repetitive, look at the way you introduce the quotations. Are you varying your approach? Are you using different verbs? Make changes accordingly.

Some things in life just have to be memorised. Memorise the rules of citation, and you’ll never have to worry about them again.

Be Aware of These:

The first time you mention a critic or author in the text of your essay, give his or her first and last names.  Every time after that, use the surname only.

In textual citations, give only the author’s surname. If you have already mentioned the author in the sentence, you only need to give the page number.

Citation is the most irritating and nit-picky aspect of writing an essay. Mastering correct citation format, however, will make you feel like you rule the world.

Fewer than four lines? Citation, then punctuation.

More than four lines?  Punctuation, then citation.

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