INTEGRATING QUOTES AND PARAPHRASES IN RESEARCH PAPERS
If you lack personal experience in a subject, you will turn to sources to learn what you need to
know. You will attach a bibliography to your paper, and you will integrate the ideas from
other writers through paraphrase, summary, and direct quotation. However, the bibliography
is not enough to show your reader where borrowed information comes from: you have to
document a source every time you use a quotation or a paraphrase. Giving credit to sources in the
text is called in-text documentation. Failure to document properly constitutes plagiarism!
Never quote anything you don't fully understand.
1.
2.
When you quote, you copy passages exactly as they appear in the source, word for
word. Quotes are marked with quotations marks. The page reference follows the
quotation marks in parentheses; end punctuation goes at the end. If you mention the
name of the author in your introduction to a quote, you do not need to repeat it in the
parentheses that follow the quote.
Example: In his essay about his father's alcoholism, Scott Russell Sanders states
that his father "drank as a gut-punched boxer gasps for breath, as a starving dog
gobbles food—compulsively, secretly, in pain and trembling" (295). APA:
(1989, p. 295)
3.
Quotes have to follow the text exactly. However, a partial quote must fit the grammar
of the sentence into which it is integrated, so you might have to change a pronoun, a verb
tense, or an initial capital letter to make it fit. Put square brackets [ ] around words in a
quote you had to change to make them fit your sentence. Better yet, try to paraphrase the
parts that would give you trouble and retain only a few key words in quotations.
Example: Looking back on her life with multiple sclerosis, Nancy Mairs declares
that "[she] was never a beautiful woman, and for that reason [she has] spent most
of [her] life suffering from the shame of falling short of an unattainable
standard" (231). APA: (1986, p. 231)
Shorten longer quotes as much as possible; cut out everything you don't absolutely
4.
need to prove your point. Put ellipses (... ) where you took out words from the original
text. If several quotes in one sentence come from the same page, one page reference at
the end is enough.
Example: In his essay "Politics and the English Language," George Orwell gives
several tips o how writers can simplify their writing style and thus escape the
"pretentiousness" of public discourse: avoid using clichés, use short words instead
of long ones, use active instead of passive voice, use "everyday English
equivalent[s]" of Greek and Latin words (172). APA: (1950, p. 172).
5.
Never quote a whole sentence without stating the point the quote supports
beforehand. Put a colon between your point and the quote:
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