How to Quote in Under 5 minutes | Scribbr 🎓

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If you're watching this video you're probably struggling one way or another with quoting.

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In this video, we'll learn how to quote together step by step

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and by the end of this video, you'll be an expert!

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Yes, we can.

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Hold on. Did I just quote someone?

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Now there are three basic principles of quoting

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The quote itself has to be surrounded by quotation marks

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Cite the author correctly

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so make sure you include the author's name, the year, and if it's from a book or journal,

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You need the exact page number as well.

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The quote also has to be identical to the original, so no changing it.

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If you do end up changing it, there are a few points

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you need to be aware of, which I would explain later in the video.

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Of course, depending on your citation style, the citation contains different information.

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In this video we'll be focusing on APA. But don't worry if you're using other styles, just check the link in the description.

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We just talked about the three principles of quoting, now we're diving deeper into how to quote in a bigger picture.

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Let's begin with how to introduce a quote.

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There are three ways to introduce a quote. The first is with an introductory sentence.

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Consider this example. You can introduce the quote with the full sentence followed by a colon.

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You can also use introductory signal phrase.

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Now take a look at this example.

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You can use a signal phrase that mentions the author or source but doesn't form a full sentence.

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In this case, you follow the phrase with the comma instead of a colon.

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Of course you can also use other dialogue verbs

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such as argues, claims or explains.

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If you want to quote a phrase that's not a full sentence, or if it flows well with your paragraph

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You can also integrate it in your own sentence as you can see from this example.

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Now that we know how to introduce a quote,

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let's tackle the differences between a short and a long block quote.

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If the quote you want to use is less than 40 words

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Remember the principles we mentioned earlier?

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Quotation marks and in-text citation?

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But if it's more than 40 words

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instead of using quotation marks

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you set the quote on a new line and indent it, so that it forms a separate block of text

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Now that we've learned the basics of quoting, let's get more advanced and take a look at how quotes can be changed

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Let's say you found the perfect quote, but it's a bit too long and some of the information is irrelevant so you want to take that out.

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we can do that by removing words, phrases or sentences and replace them with ellipses.

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that's the dot dot dot

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You can also add information to a quote. If a quote is missing information that's essential for you to understand it

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You can add it in square brackets

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In this example, the quote uses a pronoun that refers to someone mentioned before.

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But without the previous sentence, the readers might not know who that is referred to.

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Then you can replace the pronoun with the person's name in brackets

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If you just so happen to come across a piece of text you want to quote, but it contains some errors

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In this scenario there are spelling and grammatical mistakes.

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You can notice the error by adding square bracket sic after the mistake

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Of course, quotes are extremely useful and often a basic requirement when you're writing a paper

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with this in mind try not to go overboard with it and only use it in the following cases

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Let's say you're writing a paper about the novels of a modernist author.

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In this case, you'll probably have the quote frequently in order to analyze their language and style

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To convince the readers of your argument, interpretation or your position on a topic,

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you should include quotes that support your point.

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You can quote to show that your point is supported by an authority on that topic

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or to critique a position that you disagree with

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For example, you've found the sentence that perfectly sums up a theory of your topic.

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So you quote the author before elaborating on your understanding of that theory

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And that's it for this video on how to quote.

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Thanks for watching and I hope you learned something useful

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For more information on quoting, check out the article in the description box below.

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See you next time!