Methods for Quoting Material - Elgin



Methods for Quoting Material

When using source material in your written work, you will often want to directly quote particularly well-written or important material from your sources. When doing so, you must pay close attention to format and punctuation marks as you quote and cite your source.

1. Short quotations (exactly as written in source) written as a part of your sentence or paragraph:

a. Quote preceded by a verb (says, notes, indicates, etc.)

Some Americans feel that efforts to solve the “homeless problem” are really just efforts to hide the ugliness of homelessness from our view. Celine Marie Pascale, for instance, notes, “An increasing number of U.S. cities are criminalizing non-criminal behavior such as loitering and sleeping in public” (320).

b. Quote preceded by restrictive clause (start with “that”)

Some Americans feel that efforts to solve the “homeless problem” are really just efforts to hide the ugliness of homelessness from our view. Celine Marie Pascale, for instance, notes that “an increasing number of U.S. cities are criminalizing non-criminal behavior such as loitering and sleeping in public” (320).

2. Longer quotations (generally preceded by a colon and an introductory clause like “states the following:”)

Americans’ attitudes toward women in the work force have changed over the years in part as a result of social and political issues far beyond any typical women’s issues. Susan Faludi notes the following changes:

The spiral swung around again in the 1940s as a wartime economy opened millions of high-paying jobs to women, and the government even began to offer minimal day care are household assistance. Federal brochures saluted the hardy working woman as a true patriot. Strong women became cultural icons; Rosie the Riveter was revered and, in 1941, Wonder Woman was introduced. (Backlash 51)

A quote within a quote

Occasionally, you will want to quote material which your source also quoted. This may happen in two ways:

a. Quote only the material that your source quoted:

Some feminists see conspiracy around every corner. In 1933, Doris Stevens noted, “All around us we see attempts being made, buttressed by governmental authority, to throw women back into the morass of unlovely dependence from which they were just beginning to emerge” (qtd. in Faludi 50).

b. Quote both the source AND the material quoted in the source.

Women who delayed childbearing “were, in the words of President Theodore Roosevelt, ‘criminals against the race’ and ‘objects of contemptuous abhorrence by healthy people’” (Faludi 49).

Methods for Altering Quoted Material

1. Shorten and Specify Quotations Using Ellipsis points:

Some Americans feel that efforts to solve the “homeless problem” are really just efforts to hide the ugliness of homelessness from our view. Celine Marie Pascale, for instance, shows that “in a misguided effort to deal with homelessness [ . . .] U.S. cities are criminalizing non-criminal behavior” (320).

2. Clarify Quoted Material Using Brackets and Parentheses

A. If you add emphasis to a quote, use parentheses at end for comment:

Pascale (320) notes that “an increasing number of U.S. cities are criminalizing non-criminal behavior such as loitering and sleeping in public” (emphasis added).

If you make a comment within the quoted material, use brackets:

Pascale notes that “the latest government reports [April 1999] indicate that homelessness has increased 2% each year for the past 10 years” (318).

B. If you alter a quote to make the grammar flow with your sentence, place brackets around the words you change.

“I regard [neckties] of all sorts as dangerous neck tourniquets that block the flow of blood to the brain and cause a buildup of hot air that, if unchecked, can turn a person into a Fathead” (Hall 113).

C. See other possibilities in WRP 171-172

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Why would I ever change the quoted material anyway?

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Note: All quotations used in your

writing require _____________________________________

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