In your paper or thesis, you build an argument using your own logical steps. This is your central topic and the core of your paper. You can enliven, clarify or substantiate your argument by citing or paraphrasing external sources. Keep an eye on how you use paraphrases or quotations, however. Do not overdo it. If you quote too much, you lose your grip on what you are trying to convey to your readers. After all, you are handing over your voice to other authors. Paraphrasing reduces that risk, because at least you use your own words. Integrate quotations into your running text as much as possible and keep them short. Every quotation or paraphrase is followed by a reference to the source (as a note).

Quoting Properly

Stay true to the source text:

• A quotation is a literal copy from the source text, including possible archaic or regional spellings. If the source text contains an error, you may add [sic] in square brackets after the error. Limit your use of ‘sic’ to cases that could cause confusion.
• Include only English-language quotations. If your source text happens to be written in a different language, try to find an existing, published translation. Only translate the original yourself if you cannot find an existing translation, or if you feel the existing translation(s) are wrong on some crucial point. Do not forget to include a note indicating that you personally translated the quote (‘my translation’) and the original text. Also include the original source in your list of references.
• Do not blindly trust others and do not copy their quotations without checking the original source. If you think another author’s quotation is particularly apt and you want to include it in your own paper or thesis, then try to locate the original text (or a photo or PDF of it) and quote from this. Only if you are unable to find the original, are you allowed to quote ‘indirectly’ and only on condition you mention that you have found this quote in someone else’s work (‘cited in …’).
• If you want to emphasize one or more words in a quote, you can italicize them. End the quote by adding [my italics] in square brackets or by adding [my italics] to the note accompanying the quote.

Use the correct format:

• Quotes that are integrated into running text are always enclosed in double quotation marks: “…”
• Single quotation marks are used to enclose quotations within quotations: “.‘..’.”
• In British English, it is more common to use single quotation marks (or ‘inverted commas’) for quotations and double quotation marks quotations within quotations: ‘ “ “ ‘.
• A colon is used to introduce a quotation of more than one complete sentence, while a comma is used to separate an introductory phrase from a quotation of one sentence or less.

  As FDR put it: “This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”

  As FDR put it, “[T]he only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”

• Use brackets around the first capital (or lower case letter) to indicate that the original text started with a lower case letter (or capital).

  Original quote: “Learning from experience is a faculty almost never practiced.”
  Barbara Tuchman wrote that “[l]earning from experience is a faculty almost never practiced.”

• If you quote a complete sentence, the period (or question mark or exclamation point) that ends the sentence in enclosed within the final quotation mark, as follows:
  As Gerritsen put it, “This is the best way.”
• If you quote just a phrase (incomplete sentence) and make it part of your own sentence structure, the punctuation belongs to your sentence and goes outside of the quotation marks, as follows:
  Jansen agrees with Gerritsen, who had argued that it “was the best way”.
• Ellipsis: if you want to condense a quote by leaving something out, use three periods or dots in a row, separated by extra spaces: . . . Do not use square brackets to enclose the dots.
• If for reasons of clarification you want to add something to a quote, enclose this in square brackets, as follows:
  One professor complained, “The hours [university] teachers are expected to work have grown exponentially over the past decade.”
• Quotations of more than three lines are not incorporated into the running text, but formatted as block quotations set off from the rest of the text, without quotation marks. Block quotations are set off by:
  • inserting an extra line break above and below the quotation to create extra white space;
  • indenting all lines from the left;
  • using a 1 pt smaller font or single-spacing the text while maintaining the same font size as the body;
  • If your block quotation itself contains a quotation, this is reflected by the use of double quotation marks.