Your essay should not be a mere stringing together of others' words with a few connectors of your own. Use quotation only when you have to. There are two principal reasons to quote:
When your source expresses an idea that supports or challenges your own, or an idea that you wish to support or challenge.
Rarely--when your source expresses an idea with particular eloquence, such that its exact words are indispensable.
Remember, it is your essay. Use quotation to support your own words, not to replace them.
When you quote, be sure to do so accurately. Your quotation should correspond to the original source in wording, spelling, and interior punctuation.
Be careful not to pervert the original meaning of a passage by quoting it out of context. Be careful also to preserve the grammatical logic of the passage and to join it smoothly to your own text.
Each quotation should end with a citation of its exact source. You may well also find it a good idea to name the author you are quoting when you introduce the quotation.
You should incorporate short quotations into the flow of your text, enclosed with quotation marks. A quotation of two or more sentences, however, which runs for four or more typewritten lines, should be set as a block. Block quotations are single spaced, indented from both left and right margins, and are not enclosed in quotation marks.
In-line quotations are enclosed in double quotation marks (" "). For quotations within quotations, use single marks (' ').
For the sake of appearance (if not strict logic) place all final commas or periods inside quotations marks; colons, semicolons, and question and exclamation marks go outside, unless they are part of the material you are quoting.
The first letter of a quotation is not capitalized if the quotation is tied grammatically to your preceding words, even if the original had a capital. Conversely, if the quotation is not tied grammatically to your words, its first letter is capitalized, again regardless of the original.
If you omit part of a quoted sentence, indicate the omission with an ellipsis, three spaced dots. If a punctuation mark precedes the omission, include it before the ellipsis.
"Among Mozart's operatic heroes, . . . Don Giovanni is perhaps the most complex."
If you interpolate your own words within a quotation of someone else's, enclose your words in square brackets.
"Only gradually did Schenker come to realize the central role played in tonal design by a limited number of Ursätze [fundamental structures]."
In most essays -- and especially in student essays -- much space is devoted to conveying the ideas of others, especially ideas gathered from secondary sources. Rather than merely quoting your source's words, you should usually paraphrase them, translating them into your own words.
An issue of both scholarly and ethical importance is how closely your words should mirror those of your source. Consider, for instance, the following original passage and its close paraphrase in a student essay.
Source:
The music Prokofiev wrote before he left Russia was representative of the new antiromanticism, a revolt against the cloying mysticism of Scriabin and the extremely subjective romanticism of Rachmaninoff. In spite of his use of extreme dissonance in these early works, the music is basically tonal and has a great melodic emphasis. During his middle period, he came under the influence of the Stravinskian constructivist approach that dominated the Parisian scene during the twenties. His move back to Russia was also a move toward romanticism and nationalism. (Martin and Drossin 1980, 162)Essay:
Prokofiev's early music was a revolt against the cloying mysticism of Scriabin and the subjective romanticism of Rachmaninoff. Prokofiev used extreme dissonance in these works, although the music is basically tonal with great melodic emphasis. While abroad, Prokofiev was influenced by the Stravinskian constructivist approach of the Parisian scene, but on returning home he moved toward romanticism and nationalism.
The procedure here is obvious. The essayist has simply lifted the key phrases from his source and added his own connecting words.
What is so bad about such close paraphrasing? Two things. First, there is an odor of dishonesty, even of plagiarism, about it. The absence of quotation marks lends a false air of originality to the passage; we are presumably meant to believe that all words are the essayist's own.
Second, close paraphrasing defeats much of the purpose for writing essays. A student essay is an exercise in handling ideas: researching them, comprehending them, evaluating them, organizing them, and writing them. In paraphrasing, the student deals only with words, not with the ideas they express. The student writing the above passage may not be at all familiar with the music of Prokofiev, Scriabin, or Rachmaninoff. He may have no idea what the ÒStravinskian constructivist approachÓ is. By closely paraphrasing, he avoids having to face and overcome his ignorance. He merely parrots his source.
Students rarely resort to close paraphrasing out of conscious dishonesty. Most often the problem lies in how research notes are first taken. Too often, a student takes notes from his sources using close paraphrasing. It seems easy, when researching, to write a shorthand version of the source's words. Even easier these days is simply to photocopy the necessary pages of the source. When the student then uses such notes to compose his essay, close paraphrasing creeps in almost inevitably.
Hence the advice in the Topics and Research page of this guide: when you take research notes, use your own words. You will thereby be forced to confront your source's ideas, a confrontation that lies at the heart of scholarship.