What are Direct Quotes?
Direct quotes are portions of a text taken word for word and placed inside of a work. Readers know when an author is using a direct quote because it is denoted by the use of quotation marks and
The Basics of Directly Quoting
- All quoted material should be enclosed in quotations marks to set it off from the rest of the text. The exception to this is block quotes (see final video on this page), which require different formatting.
- Quoted material should be an accurate word-for-word reproduction from the author’s original text. You cannot alter any wording or any spelling. If you must do so, you must use a bracket or an ellipsis (see section below).
- A clear signal phrase/attribution tag should precede each quotation.
- A parenthetical citation normally follows a quotation.
- An explanation of why the quoted material is important should follow the quote.
The Hard Part of of Directly Quoting: Integrating Quotes into Your Writing
- Introduce a quote with a signal phrase. Do not just drop a quote into your paper without identifying the author or contextualizing the quote. See the examples below.
Sample Signal Phrases:
Dr. Jane Doe declares her belief in UFOs, which she says are “phenomena scientists cannot explain” (105).
Dr. Jane Doe argues that . . .
Dr. Jane Doe believes that . . .
The work of Dr. Jane Doe shows that . . .
As Dr. Jane Doe indicates. . .
As Dr. Jane Doe implies. . .
As Dr. Jane Doe suggests. . .
Dr. Jane Doe thinks that . . .
Dr. Jane Doe addresses. . .
- Include necessary information so that your reader can figure out which source you used. In the cases above (in the box), the writer uses the author’s name in the sentence. An in-text citation follows the quote, indicating the page number on which the quote appeared. In this case, the quote appeared on page 105.
- Explain why the material you have just quoted is interesting or important. Do not, however, merely restate what is said in the quote. You, as the author of your essay, should explain the significance of each quotation to your reader. This goes far beyond simply including a signal phrase. Explaining the significance means indicating how the quoted material supports the point you are making in that paragraph.
Remember: just because you add a quote does not mean that you have made your point. Quotes never speak for themselves. How and why does that quoted material make the point you think it does?
Here are some helpful phrases for explaining quoted materials. Take a look at the sentences that follow the quoted material in bold:
Dr. Jane Doe believes that humans “must attempt to befriend our extraterrestrial neighbors” (110). What Dr. Does’s point demonstrates is that . . .
Dr. Jane Doe believes that humans “must attempt to befriend our extraterrestrial neighbors” (110). Here, Dr. Doe is not simply stating _______, she is also demonstrating __________.
Dr. Jane Doe believes that humans “must attempt to befriend our extraterrestrial neighbors” (110). This is an example of _____ because _______.
Dr. Jane Doe believes that humans “must attempt to befriend our extraterrestrial neighbors” (110). This statement clearly shows ______ because _______.
Brackets and Ellipses
Sometimes, in order to smoothly integrate quoted material into your paper, you may need to remove a word or add a word to make the quote make sense. If you make any change to quoted material, it must be formatted correctly using an ellipsis or brackets
Use brackets [these are brackets] to change a word. In the example below, the verb “approach” has been added to the quote by the student writer:
At the beginning of David Lodge’s novel Changing Places, “two professors of English Literature [approach] each other at a combined velocity of 1200 miles per hour” (7).
Use an ellipsis (this is an ellipsis . . . ) to indicate omissions.
The MLA Handbook explains that you should “[i]dentify an omission within a sentence by using three periods with a space before each and a space after the last . . .” (81).
Examples taken from the MLA Handbook.
When in doubt, strive to allow your voice – not a quote from a source – to begin each paragraph, precede each quote, follow each quote, and end each paragraph. Quotes that are integrated well into a paper allow you to control the paper. That is what a reader wants to see: your ideas and the way that you engage sources to shape and discuss your ideas.
The Quote Sandwich
In high school, you may have had an instructor who used the following metaphor of a sandwich to describe how to integrate a quotation into your writing.
The top slice of bread represents the signal phrase that introduces the quote. The middle part of the sandwich is the quoted material. The bottom slice of bread is your explanation of the quote.
Watch the video below about The Quote Sandwich metaphor:
What about long quotes? How do you format them?
First, it should be noted that most short essays, those under 5 pages, should likely NOT contain long quotations. This is because short essays are typically not research papers. If you do want to include a long quote—over 4 lines of prose or 3 lines of poetry—use block quotations. Take a look at this video to see how to format long quotes according to MLA 8 formatting:
[1] Attributions
This chapter contains material from “About Writing: A Guide” by Robin Jeffrey, OpenOregon Educational Resources, Higher Education Coordination Commission: Office of Community Colleges and Workforce Development is licensed under CC BY 4.0
It also contains an excerpt from David Bartholomae’s “Inventing the University.”
