You quote when you need the exact language rather than just the idea of a passage (see the next chapter for a bit more on making this choice). Quoting seems easy, but there are some rules and guidelines that you need follow. Failure to follow them can land you in plagiarism trouble.

Understanding the Rules and Guidelines for Quoting

These should help you as you quote.

Quote Exactly

Quotations must be exact. When your reader sees quotation marks, they are assuming that everything between the quotation marks is exactly what is in the original. This means that you can’t change anything in the text between your quotation marks, except what’s explained in the section below on altering quotations.

Quote Minimally

You should only quote the parts of a sentence that you absolutely need to make your point. Sometimes you need an entire sentence, but more often, you really only need to quote a few words, and the rest of the sentence could be paraphrased. Don’t quote more than you need.

Connect Quotations to Your Own Sentences

If you stick a quotation into a paragraph without connecting it to one of your own sentences, you have what’s called a “dropped quotation.” Dropped quotations confuse your reader. Without some connection to what you are saying, your reader doesn’t know why this source has suddenly appeared in your paragraph. Even when you need to quote an entire sentence, be sure to begin with something like the following:

Smith claims that “[insert quotation here].”

As Jones makes clear, “[insert quotation here].”

Even better, though, would be to paraphrase and include a minimal quotation if at all possible:

Smith claims that all students would do better in school if “[insert quotation here].”

As Jones makes clear, students who “[insert quotation here]” do far better academically than those who don’t.

Altering Quotations

There are three changes that you can make to the words between sets of quotation marks. Only three.

Using an Ellipsis (…)

An ellipsis is three periods in a row. Informally, we use ellipses (the plural form) to indicate that an idea is unfinished or that the next statement is so obvious that the reader can fill it in. But ellipses indicate something different when they appear in a quotation. Ellipses tell your reader that something has been left out.

Note that you must not change the meaning of a quotation by leaving out something relevant. This is called taking a quotation out of context. For example, you cannot remove a “not” in a sentence to change the meaning. This would obviously alter the author’s meaning.

An ellipsis is only three dots. When you see four dots, you are really seeing an ellipsis and a period. Some style guides require you to put a space between each dot; others require you to keep the dots together but put spaces on either side of the set, just as you would a word (except when there’s another mark of punctuation, in which case, there usually isn’t a space). If you aren’t sure, ask your professor.

It’s Only One

An ellipsis is considered a single mark of punctuation, even though it looks like three periods. If you doubt this, try typing … and then a space in your word processor. Then delete twice. The first delete removes the space. The second removes all three dots at once!

Example: Ellipses in Action

Ellipses can appear anywhere in a sentence. Let’s look at this using the following example, which comes from a research study by Jose Mora-Gonzalez, Isaac J. Pérez-López, Irene Esteban-Cornejo, and Manuel Delgado-Fernández on the use of gamification through a mobile app to increase physical activity (and thus cardiorespiratory fitness) in college students.

Here’s the original sentence:

“Given the unhealthy lifestyle of young adults and the implementation difficulty of several PA [physical activity] interventions, using gamification (i.e., the application of game design elements in non-game contexts) might be of help to motivate college students and to promote changes in health behaviors such as PA” (Mora-Gonzalez et al. 37-38).

In the Middle

Usually an ellipsis appears in the middle when the passage you want to quote includes a part of a sentence that isn’t relevant to your point or that is redundant:

Mora-Gonzalez et al. point out that “Given the unhealthy lifestyle of young adults and the implementation difficulty of several PA [physical activity] interventions, using gamification … might be of help to motivate college students and to promote changes in health behaviors such as PA” (37-38).

At the Beginning

Ellipses only appear at the beginning or the end of quotations (or both) when your reader might think that what you are quoting is a complete sentence, but in the original, it’s not.

Mora-Gonzalez et al.  point out that “… using gamification (i.e., the application of game design elements in non-game contexts) might be of help to motivate college students and to promote changes in health behaviors such as PA [physical activity]” (37-38).

At the End

Mora-Gonzalez et al.  point out that “Given the unhealthy lifestyle of young adults and the implementation difficulty of several PA [physical activity] interventions, using gamification (i.e., the application of game design elements in non-game contexts) might be of help to motivate college students …” (37-38).

At the Beginning and the End

Mora-Gonzalez et al.  point out that “… using gamification (i.e., the application of game design elements in non-game contexts) might be of help to motivate college students …” (37-38).

You do not need ellipses at all if your reader will understand that what you are quoting is not a complete sentence in the original. Using the same example, your reader would not need ellipses in the following sentence: Mora-Gonzalez et al.  define gamification as “the application of game design elements in non-game contexts” (37). No one would mistake the words inside the quotation marks as a complete sentence.

Using Square Brackets [ ]

Square brackets are used to indicate that you are adding something to the text. Usually these occur when the original uses a pronoun or abbreviation and you need to make sure your reader knows who or what the original author was referring to. Sometimes these are used to change capitalization or verb tense, as well.

Using [Sic]

Putting the Latin word sic in square brackets (italicized because it’s a foreign word) tells your reader that whatever was right before [sic] was exactly like that in the original. This is usually used for typos or grammatical errors in the original, but can also be used for foreign spellings of English words. [Sic] must be placed immediately after the word or parts of the sentence that it refers to. Note that this means that you never make corrections to what you are quoting.

We don’t often need to use [sic] in quotations from scholarly sources because these sources tend to be edited as they are reviewed. However, popular sources—especially those published quickly and on the internet—are more prone to errors. And when those sources use English as it is spoken in another country, we sometimes get cultural differences in the way that spelling and punctuation are used. If your reader might believe that you have made a mistake in transcribing your source, you would use [sic].

As a note: Capitalize [sic] when it is part of a title, otherwise it is lowercase! However, the letters are usually italicized.

Example: Using [Sic]

Let’s take this quotation from the British news source, The Guardian:

“Warmer ocean waters are helping supercharge storms, hurricanes and extreme rainfall, the paper states, which is escalating the risks of severe flooding” (Milman).

In American English, we use what is called an “Oxford comma” to separate three items in a series. British English does not use this comma. In an American classroom, it would make sense to use [sic] right after the word “hurricanes,” where the comma is missing:

Milman writes that “Warmer ocean waters are helping supercharge storms, hurricanes [sic] and extreme rainfall, the paper states, which is escalating the risks of severe flooding.”

Similarly, when we run into British spelling, it’s appropriate to use [sic]. Another story from The Guardian, opens with the sentence, “Labour has accused the government’s flagship national tutoring programme (NTP) of failing children and taxpayers after official figures revealed take-up rates way below target.”

“Labour” refers to a political party (Labour Party) in Britain and is a proper noun so the spelling is not an issue, but “programme” is spelled “program” in American English. To avoid confusion, it would be appropriate to put [sic] after “programme,” like this:

Weale and Adams report that the British government’s “flagship national tutoring programme [sic]” has failed to reach enough students.