How to Use Quotations in a College Paper

Comparatively few people know how much a properly cited quotation matters in a college paper. The Internet has fueled a steep rise in plagiarism, with unscrupulous students copying papers wholesale and passing them off as their own work. Yet proper quotations are often necessary to make a pertinent point, while acknowledging the original author. Citing a quotation properly helps differentiate proper academic writing from shoddy--and possibly unethical--emulation.

Instructions

1. Use quotations judiciously. Quotations work best when you need to be precise about your language, and when the author's exact thoughts are key. If the passage in your essay or paper doesn't require that, consider using original language of your own rather than a quotation. (You should still cite the source when you do so, however; otherwise it may constitute plagiarism.)

2. Write a complete sentence to set up the quotation, followed by a colon to lead into the quotation itself.

3. Focus on the exact phrase you need from the quotation. Don't edit or change the quotation you choose in any way, but do excise any surrounding text that isn't necessary; you don't want your reader to hunt for the pertinent point.

4. Use quotation marks to frame the quotation and ensure that the words are accurate. If the quoted passage is longer than four lines, set it off from your own text by indenting the passage on either side by ten space marks (or two tab marks). You don't need to put quotation marks around the indented passage.

5. Cite the author, title, publisher and publishing date of the quoted passage. You can do this in a footnote, or by placing the information in parenthesis immediately after the quote. State the author's name first, followed by a comma, then the full title of the book. Then, inside parentheses, list the city where the book was published, followed by a colon, and then the publishing company and year of publication. Follow the closing parenthesis with another comma, then provide the page number for the quotation.

6. Limit subsequent citations of the same source to the author's last name and the page number. Do this only if you cite the same source more than once in the same work.

7. Double-check your source to ensure you are reproducing the quotation accurately.

Tips & Warnings

• Keep quotations limited. While you want to cite them in support of your arguments, you still need to make sure they're your arguments and not someone else's. A good rule of thumb is to articulate your own arguments using a wholly original argument, then bring the quote in to support it, rather than the other way around.

• When quoting certain canonical works, such as Shakespeare, you can cite the act, scene and line number (or the stanza if it is a work of poetry) rather than the page number.

References

• The Chicago Manual of Style, 15th Edition, 2003
• Term Paper's Corner: Using Quotations
• MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers: 5th Edition, by Joseph Gibaldi, 1999