In-Text Citation Basics
Example:
(Jones, 2009)
(Jones, 2009, p.19)
When multiple pages are referenced, use pp.
(Jones, 2009, pp.19-21)
Beginning of a sentence:
Jones completed a study on the effects of dark chocolate on heart disease.
Middle of a sentence:
In 2009, Jones's study on the effects of dark chocolate and heart disease revealed...
End of a sentence:
The study revealed that participants who ate dark chocolate bars every day did not develop heart disease (Jones, 2009).
Citing a specific part of source (chapter, tables, figures, or equations)
When citing a particular part of a source, it is important to indicate the page, chapter, figure, table, or equation. Remember to always give page numbers for direct quotations (see APA, section 6.19, p. 179).
Correct abbreviations continue to be used (see APA, sections 4.22 - 4.30).
(National Chocolate Lovers Association, 2007, p.17)
(Jones, 2009, Chapter 8)
Paraphrasing
Paraphrasing
Here is an example of paraphrasing:
Original citation:
"With rates of childhood obesity climbing over the last decade, some parents and policy-makers have thought to consider whether the availability of endless soda and junk food in school vending machines might be contributing to the problem—and if banning those foods in schools might help solve it" (Price, 2022).
Paraphrase:
Price discusses the possibility that the availability of unhealthy, sugary snacks and drinks in school vending machines has contributed to the rising epidemic of obesity in children. In an effort to eliminate the source of the problem, some of have proposed implementing a ban .
Direct Quotes: the Short and Long
Direct quotations can vary in length. Quotes fewer than 40 words should be incorporated into the text of the paragraph. Quotes comprised of 40 or more words, need to be formatted in block quotes. (see APA, section 6.03, pp.170 - 173; and APA Style Blog, "How to Cite Direct Quotations" or APA Style Blog, "You Can Quote Me on This").
Short, direct quotes (less than 40 words):
Bell and Shank identify that "[a]t least one survey identified library instruction as the type of collaboration mentioned most frequently by librarians" (p.67).
Article retrieved online (see APA, section 6.05, p.171-172)
Price notes "[t]he results aren't huge, but apparently these laws have a real—and positive—effect on students' health" (para.4).
"Design is designed in many ways. By one definition it is the conscious examination of objects and processes to determine how they can be made better" (Bell & Shank, 2007, p. 23).
Article retrieved online (see APA, section 6.05, p.171-172)
"The books, sold in the United States, share a piece of a foreign culture, while profits are put back into the country the story came from" (Anthony, 2022, para. 2).
Long, block quotes (40 words or more):
Formatting rules:
• Indent the block quote five spaces or half an inch.
• Do not use quotation marks.
• Double space the quote unless your school has a rule about single spacing block quotes.
• Do not include any additional lines or spaces before or after the block quote.
• Notice that in block quotes, the period goes before the parentheses, not after.
Example:
Michelli uses the coffee chain, Starbucks, as example on how to become extraordinary. He discusses in detail various principles he discovered during his research on the renowned company. One of the principles focuses on "making it your own." He writes,
Like most companies, Starbucks has wrestled with ways to invite its partners to fully engage their passions and talents everyday in every interaction at wor. Simultaneously, the leadership has to ensure that individual partners' differences are blending into a generally uniform experience for customers. Finding a balance between these two important, yet somtimes divergent, leadership responsibilities can be awkward. Yet through its principle of Make It Your Own, Starbucks has succeeded in creating a unique model that encourages partners at all levels to pour their creative energy and dedication into everything they do. (p. 20)
This principle does not only apply to businesses; it can be part of anyone's personal beliefs.
Key Takeaways
Key Points
• Apostrophes can be used to indicate possessives (for example, “my dad's recipe.”)
• Apostrophes can be used to form contractions, where they indicate the omission of characters (for example, “don't” instead of “do not.”)
• Apostrophes can also be used to form plurals for abbreviations, acronyms, and symbols in cases where forming a plural in the conventional way would make the sentence ambiguous.
Key Terms
• apostrophe: A punctuation mark, and sometimes a diacritic mark, in languages that use the Latin alphabet or certain other alphabets.
Using Apostrophes to Show Possession
Apostrophes can be used to show who owns or possesses something.
For Nouns Not Ending in -s
The basic rule is that to indicate possession, add an apostrophe followed by an “s” to the end of the word.
• The car belonging to the driver = the driver's car.
• The sandwich belonging to Lois = Lois's sandwich.
• Hats belonging to children = children's hats.
For Nouns Ending in -s
However, if the word already ends with “s,” just use the apostrophe with no added “s.” For example:
• The house belonging to Ms. Peters = Ms. Peters' house. (Even though Ms. Peters is singular. )
The same holds true for plural nouns, if their plural ends in “s.” Just use an apostrophe for these!
• Three cats' toys are on the floor.
• The two ships' lights shone through the dark.
For More Than One Noun
In sentences where two individuals own one thing jointly, add the possessive apostrophe to the last noun. If, however, two individuals possess two separate things, add the apostrophe to both nouns. For example:
• Joint: I went to see Anthony and Anders' new apartment. (The apartment belongs to both Anthony and Anders.)
• Individual: Anders' and Anthony's senses of style were quite different. (Anders and Anthony have individual senses of style.)
For Compound Nouns
In cases of compound nouns composed of more than one word, place the apostrophe after the last noun. For example:
• Dashes: My brother-in-law's house is down the block.
• Multi-word: The Minister for Justice's intervention was required.
• Plural compound: All my brothers-in-law's wives are my sisters.
For Words Ending in Punctuation
If the word or compound includes, or even ends with, a punctuation mark, an apostrophe and an “s” are still added in the usual way. For example:
• Westward Ho!'s railway station
• Louis C.K.'s HBO special
For Words Ending in -‘s
If an original apostrophe, or apostrophe with s, is already included at the end of a noun, it is left by itself to perform double duty. For example:
• Our employees are better paid than McDonald's employees.
• Standard & Poor's indexes are widely used.
The fixed, non-possessive forms of McDonald's and Standard & Poor's already include possessive apostrophes.
Don't Use Apostrophes For…
Nouns that are not possessive. For example:
• Incorrect: Some parent's are more strict than mine.
Possessive pronouns such as its, whose, his, hers, ours, yours, and theirs. These are the only words that are able to be possessive without apostrophes. For example:
• Incorrect: That parakeet is her's.
Using Apostrophes to Form Contractions
In addition to serving as a marker for possession, apostrophes are also commonly used to indicate omitted characters. For example:
• can't (from cannot)
• it's (from it has or it is)
• you've (from you have)
• gov't (from government)
• '70s, (from 1970s)
• 'bout (from about)
An apostrophe is also sometimes used when the normal form of an inflection seems awkward or unnatural. For example:
• K.O.'d rather than K.O.ed (where K.O. is used as a verb meaning “to knock out”)
Using Apostrophes to Form Plurals
Apostrophes are sometimes used to form plurals for abbreviations, acronyms, and symbols where adding just s as opposed to ‘s may leave things ambiguous or inelegant. For example, when you are pluralizing a single letter:
• All of your sentences end with a's. (As opposed to “All of your sentences end with as.”)
• She tops all of her i's with hearts. (As opposed to “She tops all of her is with hearts.”)
In such cases where there is little or no chance of misreading, however, it is generally preferable to omit the apostrophe. For example:
• He scored three 8s for his floor routine. (As opposed to “three 8's.”)
• She holds two MAs, both from Princeton. (As opposed to “two MA's.”)
Identify situations which require quotation marks
Key Takeaways
Key Points
• Quotation marks are also used to title short literary works such as poems, short stories, essays, and newspaper and magazine articles.
• Quotation marks can also be used to show irony or highlight specific words.
Key Terms
• quotation mark
Speech
Single or double quotation marks denote either speech or a quotation. Double quotes are preferred in the
United States. Regardless, the style of opening and closing quotation marks must match. For example:
• Single quotation marks: ‘Good morning, Frank,' said Hal.
• Double quotation marks: “Good morning, Frank,” said Hal.
For speech within speech, use double quotation marks on the outside, and single marks on the inner quotation. For example:
• “Hal said, ‘Good morning, Dave,'” recalled Frank.
When quoted text is interrupted, a closing quotation mark is used before the interruption, and an
opening quotation mark is used after the interruption. Commas are often used before and after the phrase as well. For example:
• “Hal said everything was going well,” noted Frank, “but also that he could use a little help.”
Quotation marks are not used for paraphrased speech because a paraphrase is not a direct quote. Quotation marks represent another person's exact words.
Quoting Literature and Research
In most cases, quotations that span multiple paragraphs should be set as block quotations, and thus do not require quotation marks. When quotation marks are used for multiple-paragraph quotations, the convention in English is to give opening quotation marks to the first and each subsequent paragraph, using closing quotation marks only for the final paragraph of the quotation.
• When J. K. Rowling began writing the Harry Potter series, she never expected “the boy who lived” to become known worldwide.
In this example, it is clear that the phrase “the boy who lived” is from J. K. Rowling’s book.
Titles
As a rule, a whole publication should be italicized. For example, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone is italicized because it is a book. The titles of sections within a larger publication or of smaller works (such as poems, short stories, named chapters, journal papers, newspaper articles, TV show episodes, editorial sections of websites, etc.) should be written within quotation marks. Thus, when referencing a chapter from the book one would use quotation marks: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone begins with the chapter entitled “The Chosen One.”
Let's explore some other examples.
• Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet
• Dahl's “Taste” in Completely Unexpected Tales
• Arthur C. Clarke's “The Sentinel”
• The first chapter of 3001: The Final Odyssey is “Comet Cowboy”
• “Extra-Terrestrial Relays,” Wireless World, October 1945
• David Bowie's song “Space Oddity” from the album David Bowie
Nicknames
Quotation marks can also offset a nickname embedded in an actual name, or a false or ironic title embedded in an actual title. For example:
• Nat “King” Cole
• Miles “Tails” Prower
• Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson
Use-Mention Distinctions
Either quotation marks or italics can indicate when a word refers to the word itself rather than its associated concept (i.e., when the word is “mentioned” rather than “used”).
• Cheese is derived from milk. [Use]
• Cheese has calcium, protein, and phosphorus. [Use]
• “Cheese” is derived from a word in Old English. [Mention]
• Cheese has three e's. [Mention]
Irony
Quotes indicating verbal irony or another special use are sometimes called scare quotes. For example:
• He shared his “wisdom” with me.
• The lunch lady plopped a glob of “food” onto my tray.
Quotation marks are also sometimes used to indicate that the writer realizes that a word is not being
used in its current commonly accepted sense. In these cases, the quotation marks can call attention to slang, special terminology, a neologism, or they can indicate words or phrases that are unusual, colloquial,
folksy, startling, humorous, metaphoric, or that contain a pun. For example:
• Crystals somehow “know” which shape to grow into.
• I hope your diving meet goes “swimmingly”!
Using quotation marks in these ways should be avoided when possible.
Punctuating Quotations
In English, question marks and exclamation marks are placed inside or outside quoted material depending on whether they apply to the whole sentence or just the quoted portion. Commonly, they apply to the quoted portion and will be included inside the quotation marks. In some situations, however, the exclamation mark or question mark will apply to the sentence as a whole and will come after the quotation mark. In contrast, colons and semicolons are always placed outside of the quotation marks. Let's explore this punctuation rule further with some examples.
• Did he say, “Good morning, Dave”? (The question mark does not refer to the phrase within the quotation marks so the question mark is placed outside of the quotation marks.)
• No, he said, “Where are you, Dave?” (Here, the question mark is part of the question posed within the quotation marks.)
• There are three major definitions of the word “gender”: vernacular, sociological, and linguistic. (Colons and semicolons always come after the quotation mark.)
In American English, commas and periods are usually placed inside quotation marks, except in the few cases where they may cause serious ambiguity. For example:
• “Carefree,” in general, means “free from care or anxiety.”
• The name of the song was “Gloria,” which many already knew.
• She said she felt “free from care and anxiety.”
• “Today,” said the Prime Minister, “I feel free from care and anxiety.”
The style used in the UK contains only punctuation used by the original source, placing commas, periods, question marks, and exclamation marks inside or outside quotation marks depending on where they were placed in the material that is being quoted.
• “Carefree” means “free from care or anxiety.” (American style)
• “Carefree” means “free from care or anxiety”. (British style)
How Often Should I Quote?
Most of the time, paraphrasing and summarizing your sources is sufficient (but remember that you still have to cite them!). If you think it’s important to quote something, an excellent rule of thumb is that for every line you quote, you should have at least two lines analyzing it.
How Do I Incorporate Quotations in My Paper?
For example, let's say you want to quote from the following passage in an essay called "United Shareholders of America," by Jacob Weisberg:
The citizen-investor serves his fellow citizens badly by his inclination to withdraw from the community. He tends to serve himself badly as well. He does so by focusing his pursuit of happiness on something that very seldom makes people happy in the way they expect it to.
When you quote, you generally want to be as concise as possible. Keep only the material that is strictly relevant to your own ideas. So here you would not want to quote the middle sentence, since it is repeated again in the more informative last sentence. However, just skipping it would not work -- the final sentence would not make sense without it. So, you have to change the wording a little bit. In order to do so, you will need to use some editing symbols. Your quotation might end up looking like this:
In his essay, “United Shareholders of America,” Jacob Weisberg insists that “The citizen-investor serves his fellow citizens badly by his inclination to withdraw from the community. He tends to serve himself badly... by focusing his pursuit of happiness on something that very seldom makes people happy in the way they expect it to.”
to
“He tends to serve himself badly...by focusing his pursuit of happiness on [money].”
As a general rule, it is okay to make minor grammatical and stylistic changes to make the quoted material fit in your paper, but it is not okay to significantly alter the structure of the material or its content.
Quoting within Quotes
When you have "embedded quotes," or quotations within quotations, you should switch from the normal quotation marks ("") to single quotation marks ('') to show the difference. For example, if an original passage by John Archer reads:
The Mountain Coyote has been described as a “wily” and “single-minded” predator by zoologist Lma Warner.
your quotation might look like this:
As John Archer explains, “The Mountain Coyote has been described as a 'wily' and 'single-minded' predator by zoologist Lma Warner.”
How Do I Include Long Quotes in My Paper?
The exact formatting requirements for long quotations differ depending on the citation style. In general, however, if you are quoting more than 3 lines of material, you should do the following:
• change the font to one noticeably smaller (in a document that is mostly 12 point font, you should use a 10 point font, for example)
• double indent the quotation -- that means adjusting the left and right margins so that they are about one inch smaller than the main body of your paper.
• if you have this option in your word-processor, "left-justify" the text. That means make it so that each line begins in the same place, creating a straight line on the left side of the quotation, while the right side is jagged.
• do NOT use quotation marks for the entire quotation -- the graphic changes you have made already (changing the font, double indenting, etc.) are enough to indicate that the material is quoted. For quotations within that quotation, use normal quotation marks, not single ones.
• you might want to skip 1.5 times the line-spacing you are using in the document before you begin the quotation and after it. This is optional and depends on the style preferred by your instructor.
For example, a properly-formatted long quotation in a document might look like this:
Using all of his remaining strength, he tried to write his autobiography. Yet it was not an easy task for him. This was due to his still lingering sense of pride and skepticism... After finishing “A Fool's Life,” he accidentally discovered a suffered swan in a used goods store. Although it stood with its head raised, even its yellowed wings had been eaten by insects. He thought of his entire life and felt tears and cruel laughter welling up inside. All that remained for him was madness or suicide.
With this gesture Akutagawa ironizes the impossibility of truly writing the self by emphasizing the inevitable split that must occur between writing and written “self,” the Akutagawa still writing “A Fool's Life” cannot possibly be identical with the narrated persona which has finished the work.