Quoting Source Material in Your Writing
How you integrate quotations into your writing is one of the most important decisions you make when working from source material such as literature. You must let the reader know that you understand the quote you’re using, and that you have used the quotation for a good reason—not just to sound intelligent.

Rules of thumb:

  • Never quote entire sentences unless you have to for content purposes.
  • Quote only those phrases/sentences/ideas which you could not easily rephrase or for which you need the author’s original wording.
  • Use block quotations when you need to quote 4 lines or more.
  • Avoid beginning and ending paragraphs with quotes, unless they are very short phrases or if they have very powerful language.
  • Almost always, you should "introduce" the quote.
  • It’s usually a good idea to translate, or explain, the quote’s significance with regard to your point to your reader. This helps show that you understand the quote and that you’re using it for an explicit reason. It is an especially effective strategy.
  • If you haven’t attributed the quotation to a source somewhere near your quotation, then you’ve committed plagiarism.
  • Generally speaking, commas and periods go inside quotation marks; semicolons, colons, question marks, exclamation points, and dashes go outside of quotation marks, unless they are actually part of the quote.

Below are some examples of how to do parenthetical citations. The work quoted is called Walden by Henry David Thoreau. It is taken from page 61 of that book. Here is the passage:

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. … I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise [sic] resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner…

WAYS OF QUOTING THE PASSAGE

Introduction of a quote using a colon (a bit formal)

In Walden, Thoreau writes: "nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary" (61).

Introduction of a quote using a comma (most common)

In Walden, Thoreau writes, "nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary" (61).

Beginning your sentence with the quote, ending with your words

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately", writes Thoreau in Walden (61).

Burying your words in the middle of a quote

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately," Thoreau writes in Walden, "to front the essential facts of life" (61).

Using ellipsis points to show that you’ve left something out of the middle of a quote

Thoreau "wanted to live deep . . . and shave close" (61).

Quoting disparate parts of a passage

Thoreau "wanted to live deep" and "live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to rout all that was not life" (61).

Amending a quotation’s grammatical structure in order to fit into your sentence

"[N]or did I wish to practise resignation" (61), Thoreau writes of his intentions for his experiment.

Interjecting a word or phrase in order to clarify the meaning or grammar of a quote for your reader

Thoreau writes that he "did not wish to live what was not life, [because] living is so dear" (61).

Setting off a passage that takes up more than four lines of your paragraph (indent ten spaces)

In Walden, Thoreau writes:

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. … I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner…. (61)

Explaining the meaning and importance of quoted material for your reader

When Thoreau writes that he "wished to live deliberately" (61), he suggests that the structure of modern society forces people into lives and pursuits which they do not choose. Perhaps Thoreau, who is always playful with his language, wants his reader to translate the adverb "deliberately" into the verb "deliberate"—he wants to deliberate on his own choices in life.

Thoreau writes that he "wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life" (61). This analogy is richly suggestive, for if marrow is the sustenance of bones and if bones are the structure for the body, then in the woods Thoreau wants to taste what it is that gives life structure and sustenance.