Introduction

So you’ve been assigned an essay for your English class and its due in a few weeks. The paper has a few requirements including page length, the size of font to use, and citations using MLA format. What is MLA format? And for that matter, what is a citation?

MLA format stands for the Modern Language Association format, which is currently in its 8th edition.

When you write a paper, you will include quotes from the poetry, fiction, and drama that you read for this course. These items that you quote from are called sources and MLA format is a standard formula through which you cite, or acknowledge your sources. Citations provide core information for each source, such as author and title, along with other information.

But why even include quotations in the first place? Using quotes in an argumentative essay helps to support your claim and persuade your reader. However, you may not always need to quote your source, you may only need to paraphrase—meaning you restate the information in your own words.

When you quote or paraphrase in your essay, you’ll need to include how the quote relates to and supports your argument about the text. It is tempting (especially in English papers), to simply restate the information provided in the quote, however successful essays go into more depth and provide your own interpretation of the quoted or paraphrased material.

MLA Format: Quoting and Citing Literature

How to Quote and Paraphrase: An Overview

Writers quote and paraphrase from research in order to support their points and to persuade their readers. A quote or a paraphrase from a piece of evidence in support of a point answers the reader’s question, “says who?”

This is especially true in academic writing since scholarly readers are most persuaded by effective research and evidence. For example, readers of an article about a new cancer medication published in a medical journal will be most interested in the scholar’s research and statistics that demonstrate the effectiveness of the treatment. Conversely, they will not be as persuaded by emotional stories from individual patients about how a new cancer medication improved the quality of their lives. While this appeal to emotion can be effective and is common in popular sources, these individual anecdotes do not carry the same sort of “scholarly” or scientific value as well-reasoned research and evidence.

Of course, your instructor is not expecting you to be an expert on the topic of your research paper. While you might conduct some primary research, it’s a good bet that you’ll be relying on secondary sources such as books, articles, and Web sites to inform and persuade your readers. You’ll present this research to your readers in the form of quotes and paraphrases.

A “quote” is a direct restatement of the exact words from the original source. The general rule of thumb is any time you use three or more words as they appeared in the original source, you should treat it as a quote. A “paraphrase” is a restatement of the information or point of the original source in your own words.

While quotes and paraphrases are different and should be used in different ways in your research writing (as the examples in this section suggest), they do have a number of things in common. Both quotes and paraphrases should:

• be “introduced” to the reader, particularly the first time you mention a source;
• include an explanation of the evidence which explains to the reader why you think the evidence is important, especially if it is not apparent from the context of the quote or paraphrase; and
• include a proper citation of the source.

The method you should follow to properly quote or paraphrase depends on the style guide you are following in your academic writing. The two most common style guides used in academic writing are the Modern Language Association (MLA), and the American Psychological Association (APA). I discuss both of these different style guides in some detail in the Appendix of this book. Your instructor will probably assign one of these styles before you begin working on your project, however, if he/she doesn’t mention this, be sure to ask.

When to Quote, When to Paraphrase

The real “art” to research writing is using quotes and paraphrases from evidence effectively in order to support your point. There are certain “rules,” dictated by the rules of style you are following, such as the ones presented by the MLA or the ones presented by the APA. There are certain “guidelines” and suggestions, like the ones I offer in the previous section and the ones you will learn from your teacher and colleagues.

But when all is said and done, the question of when to quote and when to paraphrase depends a great deal on the specific context of the writing and the effect you are trying to achieve. Learning the best times to quote and paraphrase takes practice and experience.

In general, it is best to use a quote when:

• The exact words of your source are important for the point you are trying to make. This is especially true if you are quoting technical language, terms, or very specific word choices.
• You want to highlight your agreement with the author’s words. If you agree with the point the author of the evidence makes and you like their exact words, use them as a quote.
• You want to highlight your disagreement with the author’s words. In other words, you may sometimes want to use a direct quote to indicate exactly what it is you disagree about. This might be particularly true when you are considering the antithetical positions in your research writing projects.

In general, it is best to paraphrase when:

• There is no good reason to use a quote to refer to your evidence. If the author’s exact words are not especially important to the point you are trying to make, you are usually better off paraphrasing the evidence.
• You are trying to explain a particular a piece of evidence in order to explain or interpret it in more detail. This might be particularly true in writing projects like critiques.
• You need to balance a direct quote in your writing. You need to be careful about directly quoting your research too much because it can sometimes make for awkward and difficult to read prose. So, one of the reasons to use a paraphrase instead of a quote is to create balance within your writing.

Tips for Quoting and Paraphrasing

• Introduce your quotes and paraphrases to your reader, especially on first reference.
• Explain the significance of the quote or paraphrase to your reader.
• Cite your quote or paraphrase properly according to the rules of style you are following in your essay.
• Quote when the exact words are important, when you want to highlight your agreement or your disagreement.
• Paraphrase when the exact words aren’t important, when you want to explain the point of your evidence, or when you need to balance the direct quotes in your writing.

Quoting, Paraphrasing, and Avoiding Plagiarism. Authored by: Steven D. Krause. Located at: http://www.stevendkrause.com/tprw/chapter3.html. Project: The Process of Research Writing. License: CC BY-NC-SA: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike

How to Pick Quotes

How to Pick Appropriate Quotes

For each quote, ask yourself:

• Does the quotation say something in an original or unusually vivid and powerful way that is hard to paraphrase?
• Are the quoted words themselves at issue in your interpretation?
• Does the quotation come from someone with first-hand experience with the issues you are researching?
• Does the quotation come from an expert whose authority is particularly important to support your thesis (or argument) and enhance credibility of your writing?
• Does the quotation feature an idea you want to argue for or against?

If the answer to any of these questions is yes, make a note of it next to the quote and hold onto it. If the answer to all of these questions is no, you don’t need the quote—set it aside.

Helpful Tips

You now have all the elements you need to use this quote as evidence supporting your argument!

Remember, every quote needs to be surrounded by your interpretation—that’s how you make the quote work for you. You can rearrange the information in your Quote Generating Worksheet in any number of ways, but one good technique is to start with What It Means (usually a summary or paraphrase of the quoted material), then insert the Quote followed by the Author and Page in the correct citation style for your paper, then interpret the quote by telling your reader How It Relates to your own argument. So the quote used in the model worksheet might look like this:

• Working on multiple tasks at the same time can compromise our ability to focus on just one. According to journalist Matt Richtel, “Scientists say juggling e-mail, phone calls and other incoming information can change how people think and behave. They say our ability to focus is being undermined by bursts of information” (n.p.). This implies that seemingly inborn traits like the ability to focus might in fact be produced by technology. Technology doesn’t just define our era—it defines the people living in our era.

Notice how I surrounded the quote with my own interpretation. I introduced the quoted material with the name of the author, separated the quote from the rest of the sentence with a comma, retained the capitalization in the original quote, used double quotation marks to indicate quoted material, included the in-text citation in parentheses after the closing quotation mark (in this case, because it’s an online source, there isn’t any page—“n.p.” stands for “no page,” and it’s what we use in place of a page number if none is available), and I placed the final punctuation mark (the period) after the in-text citation.

If you only want to use part of the quote, you can integrate it into the grammatical structure of your sentence, like this:

• Working on multiple tasks at the same time can compromise our ability to focus on just one. Richtel reports that scientists now say “our ability to focus is being undermined by bursts of information” from new technologies of communication (n.p.). This implies that seemingly inborn traits like the ability to focus might in fact be produced by technology.

Notice the differences between the separated quotation format and the integrated quotation format. I did not separate the quote with a comma, the first letter of the quoted material is lowercase (if I had used the beginning of the sentence, I would have changed the initial letter to lowercase and indicated the change with brackets, like this: “[s]cientists say”), and I included the in-text citation before the period at the end of the sentence. Because this is the second time I’ve mentioned Matt Richtel, I refer to him by his last name only.

Want more info? Try this resource:

• Learn about proper MLA formatting or APA formatting through the Purdue Online Writing Lab.

CUNY Academic Commons: https://bacwritingfellows.commons.gc.cuny.edu/for-students/effective-quoting-in-two-exercises/

CUNY Academic Commons: https://bacwritingfellows.commons.gc.cuny.edu/integrating-quotes/

Summary

From the learning material in this module, you should now know what MLA format is and understand how to evaluate and then incorporate appropriate quotes and paraphrases into your writing. This information is crucial to writing a clear and effective paper for your Literature course.

Knowing how to support your argument with quotations and paraphrases from the original text and essays of literary criticism, helps to construct your argument. This is especially useful when you discuss how a passage relates to your argument. Knowing when and how to use quotes helps to improve your paper and make it stronger and more effective writing. MLA format provides a standard way to acknowledge these sources so that your reader can easily find the information you used in your paper.

Citing your sources is not only important to constructing your argument well, it also helps you to avoid instances of academic dishonesty, such as plagiarism. Any ideas that did not come from you need to be credited to their original source. If you are unsure of whether or not to cite a source, ask your instructor or a librarian for help.