How to cite a quote in an essay
Often the usage of direct quotes in the text is an excellent option in order not only to expand the scope of the research topics but also to demonstrate that the ideas and arguments that you refer to have practical confirmation. Besides, the usage of quotes directly supports your arguments and can also be used to elaborate on your ideas or argument statement further.
Nevertheless, if you specify quotations in your college assignment and at the same time do not correctly format them in reference, then most likely your assignment will be considered nothing more than plagiarism. That is why it is crucial to know specific rules and regulations on how to accurately draw up any quotation marks in your article.
Mind the rules and norms
Even though different types of works use different writing styles and argument, absolutely all articles should be indicated according to the rules for precise quotations, which are not just your own thoughts and ideas.
! Be careful if you use an original quote for your essay writing. If you do not format it correctly in reference, then it will be considered as plagiarism.
Sometimes primary schools do not always pay due attention to how students use citation in their entire assignment writing, and in the future, this entails a series of errors. That is why it is essential initially to learn how to quote various authors in your assignment correctly. This is especially true if you plan to continue further studies at university or college.
! Remember that if original citations are used in your assignment, then at the end of any essay writing, you need to draw up a bibliography indicating the sources of citation correctly.
If your good essay writing begins with a quote
Often writing an introduction is a challenging task when creating a research essay. Although there are a considerable number of options for how to write an introductory section, sometimes students use quotes to start their assignment. If you pick up a spectacular and firm quote in the introductory section writing, this will help you further interest the reader and develop the essay writing in the right direction.
! Avoid overly cited quotes and cliches and never search them on social networks.
If you want to add quotes in your assignment, try not to use too widespread cited phrases that can often be found on different social networks. Be sure that the reader is absolutely uninterested in re-reading familiar quotes that appear every day before eyes.
Custom use of quotes
If you want to really surprise the reader and attract interest in reading your assignment, then you can use a tool like a quote in a non-standard way. This, in turn, will help draw the necessary share of attention to the rest of the writing. Try following this guide to diversifying your assignment:
- Use original quotes from writers who are least expected to be cited;
- Try using a quote from those drafters who are not too popular in society (citing movie stars or famous peoples is unlikely to surprise the readership pleasantly);
- Use the following trick when you question a very famous quote. In this case, you need to show that the quote indicated by the legendary writer has an absolute contradiction and can be examined. Thanks to this, you will be able to more deeply develop the idea expressed by another writer of the quote and demonstrate a broader view of the words that are analyzed and have a much more significant meaning. Never forget about correct punctuation here.
A preliminary study of quotes and the use of air quotes in your article
Before using this or that quotation, try to analyze in what context it was said and how useful it is to add it in the article. To do this, you need to try to imagine who will be your readers and how much the readership is familiar with a particular author. Try following these guidelines which include:
- Analysis of how much the reader may be familiar with the works of the writer of which you are citing;
- If the quote you use have an offensive or threatening implication (if so, try to avoid such quotes as readers’ reactions may be unpredictable);
- If you want to attract the reader’s attention further using quotes, then try highlighting the content with air quotes. Thus, you will precisely concentrate the attention of the readership at a particular moment, or you will interest them in reading the rest of the assignment.
It is important to remember that no matter what quote you plan to use, the essential principle is that the quote should correspond to the subject that is being studied in the assignment and not to distract the reader’s attention from other ideas and arguments that you indicate. If you mistakenly use a quote that is not relevant to the topic, the result will be that you will confuse the people.
How to quote correctly in the essay writing
The correct usage of quotes in your article is not so difficult. You will need to pay much more attention to the proper design of the quotation in the assignment itself. The first thing you should start with is to analyze the main section of the origin from which you take a quote.
The main source is considered an assignment or article section of which you want to include your academic work.
Indicating the secondary origin
One of the options for indicating the secondary origin in the most efficient way is the so-called practice of using secondary quotes. In other words, when you are going to mention the writer of the publication, you can first use “According to Bernard Shaw, the author of the book “Einstein on Cosmic Religion and Other Opinions and Aphorisms.”
In this case, the secondary air quotes stand out against the standard air quotes, and thereby, you focus on the secondary origin of data. It goes without saying that for each scientific assignment, drafters can use different citation rules that are most often implemented in formats like APA style or MLA style. In this case, citation standards include:
- If you use citation rules according to the APA format, then after you indicate the name of the author, you will need to additionally write the year of publication of the material in brackets. Also, you will need to show the page number immediately after mentioning the cite.
- When using citation examples in a format such as MLA style, immediately after you indicate the writer of the cited material, you will need to show the count of sides from which the argument was taken.
Remember that the inclusion of relevant records on citation sources is mandatory for the list of references that you put at the end of your assignment. In this case, the list of links in which you will refer to certain sources of data should fully correspond to all the citations you use in the source. If, in the section of the in-text citation, you additionally use the so-called indirect quotes, then in the list of links you need to specify only a secondary source of data.
Ways to put the in-text citation
You have probably already learned the rules and norms for the use of quotations in your writing. This process often depends solely on the method and style of citing that are indicated in the requirements for writing the assignment. In order to better understand what is at stake, let’s demonstrate this with an example.
If you need to use a citation style such as MLA (Modern Language Association) according to the language requirements for writing the academic work, then you need to indicate the author’s full name and the page number from which the cite you included in your assignment is taken.
If we are talking about a quoting in such style as APA (American Psychological Association), you will additionally need to indicate the year when the cited source was published. This applies to both the sentences of writing where the cite is shown and the reference page at the end of your assignment.
The use of short quotes
According to the norms and requirements of such a formatting style as MLA, short quotes are called quotes, which in volume does not exceed four printed lines of writing. If the quote you plan to use meets these standards, then you need to:
- Apply double quotes to use the required quote
- Indicate the name of the writer of the assignment
- Use the page numbers from which the quotation was taken
As part of using a quote in your assignment, the author’s name is allowed to be written either before or after you write a quote, the author’s name must be included in such marks as parentheses. As for the page number where the quote was taken from, it should be indicated at the end and does not have any additional notation. In this case, it’s clear that we are talking about the number of sides where the quotation was taken from.
For your part, try to develop the habit of inserting a quote directly at the beginning of a short paragraph. If you note the quote without following a clear structure, then most likely the reader simply will not understand why it was used for and what kind of word logic it is.
Features of counseling quotes with long quotes
According to the standards adopted in the MLA formatting style, long air quotes are considered to be quotes that exceed the volume of 4 printed lines of text. If you use a similar quotation in your research paper, then you need to place it in a separate free text block and do not use quotation marks.
Mind that the first line of the quote used along with double spacing option and this quote should end with a particular punctuation mark, after which it is necessary to indicate the name of the author and additionally write the number of sides in brackets.
If you plan to quote several paragraphs at once, then you definitely need to use block quotes mark. This rule also applies when it comes to citing less than four printed lines of text. Remember that in this case, you need to indent the first line of each paragraph and remember to use contractions at the end of the paragraph and before you proceed to the next citation.
Add, paraphrase or remove words from quotes
If within the framework of the quotation used, you need to modify it in some way by adding or removing a certain number of general words to better match the context of your school paper, you need to perform the following several steps. If you want to put your own additional resources of information directly in the quote, then you need to insert words in brackets. Thus, the teacher will be able to find and understand the meaning of such a quote more deeply.
If you want to remove a piece of the quote that is not related to your school paper and can mislead the reading audience, then you need to use general marks such as ellipses (…)
Quoting Online Quotes
If you need to apply quotes that you found in online sources, in a section of your assignment, then this quotation process looks a bit more complicated than using quotes from published sources of data taken from books, scientific articles, publication sentences or laboratory studies. Since if you use quotes taken from origins written on the Internet, you will not be able to point to the corresponding page where the data was taken from. In case of online examples, you need to describe and specify the origin of online quotation resources of information in as much detail as possible, which should include:
- Author’s name;
- Year and date when the thesis was written;
- The name of the origin of the research paper from where the quote was taken.
This way, you provide the reader with the most detailed information about the origin of the citation in your topic.