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How to Attribute Quotes in an Article
Attributing Quotes in an Article
Learning how to attribute quotes in an article is something every writer, journalist or student needs to do. Learn the rules of attributing a quote to avoid being accused of plagiarism and to avoid points being taken off in a term paper or essay.
Simply learn the guidelines below and your quotations will enhance, not draw attention away, from the article you are writing.
The most important part of quote attribution is to make sure the reader knows it’s a quote and the reader knows who said the quote.
That way, you aren’t taking credit for whatever words you are using to make your argument. In scholarship, there’s nothing worse than taking credit for the thoughts and words of another person. It’s called plagiarism and charges of plagiarism have ruined careers and grade point averages.
Attributing Direct Quotes
When you use a direct quote, use quotation marks to set the quote off from the rest of your text. When you finish the quote, list the name of the quote’s source.
Attributing Indirect Quotes
When you use an indirect quote, you do not use quotation marks. That’s because an indirect quote is usually a paraphrase of a writer’s or speaker’s words. But even though you don’t use quotation marks, you need to attribute the ideas to the source of the quote.
More Fluid Uses of Quotes
Writers who don’t want too many citations within the text of their article can introduce a quote more fluidly by attributing the quote inside a sentence. Two examples would be: ___ said in his recent speech or ___ wrote in her recent book “___”.
Quotation Punctuation
When you use quotation marks, maintain good punctuation within the text. This means you put a period at the end of a sentence that’s in a quote.
When there is a attribution at the end of a quote, you’ll need to add a period between the quote and the attribution. After the attribution, you’ll need to add a period.
Electronic Quotes
When using email or telephones quotations, state what manner of conversation took place, who said the quote and then cite the quote as you would with any other quotation.
Multiple Quotes From the Same Person
You can use more than one quote from the same author in the same paragraph, but you’ll need to cite the author every time and eventually add the relevant page numbers you’re citing at the end of your paragraph (the last quote in the paragraph). This method is used to either juxtapose two contradictory quotes from the same person or to cite several quotes that reinforce one another or relate directly to one another.
Anonymous Quotations
For journalists and other writers, anonymous quotations should only be used when you cannot obtain the information any other way. If the information being attributed doesn’t warrent this extraordinary measure, don’t use it. Keep in mind that an anonymous quote generally doesn’t have the weight than a quote someone who’s willing to put their name by the quote.
Articles With More Than One Author
When quoting a book or article with more than one author, only attribute the last name of the first listed author. You’ll do the same in the bibliography of your article.
Using Ellipsis in a Quote
When you substitute words that you remove from a quotation, you’ll need to add ellipsis () to the words you sustitute. You’ll see this done in newspaper articles and magazine articles all the time, usually when the quote wouldn’t necessarily makes sense in its original form.
Ellipsis might be used to add a name to clarify who is being referred to, or describe the object being discussed. These are by no means the full list of examples.
Page Numbers in Quotations
Once again, when quoting from a book, always place the relevant page number at the end of the attribution.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 4th, 2009 at 11:45 pm and is filed under How To Guides, Quotes, Writing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.