Rules
for quotation
The grammar and punctuation rules for quotation are a little tricky, but it is important not to make mistakes. You can follow the rules laid out here in papers for all your classes, but especially when it comes to literature papers.
On
this page, you will find instructions on the following subjects:
A short
quote in the middle of a sentence
Punctuation
marks other than commas and periods
Shakespeare and other early English drama
·
If you are using the course text only, I do not require a bibliography
or works cited list. If you are using a different edition from the one
prescribed for the course, you will have to provide a Works Cited list with a
reference.
·
Check the handout on documenting sources and plagiarism by clicking here.
·
Give page references for all quotes from prose. Page references must be
inclusive and show where the quote begins and where it ends: 23-25 means the
quote begins on page 23 and ends on page 25.
·
Give line references for all quotes from poetry (and additional
references to books or cantos if dealing with epic poems); do not give page
references. Your references must be inclusive and show all lines quoted: ll.
2-4 means you have quoted lines 2 to 4.
·
Give act, scene, and line references for plays, no page references:
1.2.44 means the line comes from Act 1, scene 2, line 44. Your references must
be inclusive and show all lines quoted: 2.4.22-24 means you have quoted Act 2,
scene 4, lines 22 to 24.
Many
writers have problems when using quotation in the areas of grammar and content.
These are the most common mistakes:
o
The writer does not incorporate a quote into the grammar of his or her
own sentence.
o
The writer quotes a fragment of a sentence or gives a short quote
without supplying the missing information. In its worst form, this leads to
misquotation, where the meaning of the quote changes because it has been taken
out of context.
o
The writer does not prepare the reader for the quote but just “drops” it
in the middle of his or her text.
Remember
that a paper needs to stand on its own; the reader should be able to follow the
argument without having the text by his or her side. Whether you are quoting or
not, your sentences should be grammatically correct and accurate. And your
reader should be prepared through an introductory sentence or phrase for the
fact that a quote is coming up.
You
can learn to avoid problems with grammar and content by thinking carefully
about how you introduce your quotes. Don’t simply put “The speaker says” in
front of every quote and never just place a quote between your sentences. Think
about what the quote refers to: is the subject and object of the quote clear?
Are there pronouns (he, she, it) and is it clear what
everything in the quote refers to? Have you shown what the context is for this
quote?
It
is your job to make up for what is missing from the text in your own words.
I
am using Shakespeare’s sonnets to give some examples because these problems are
often found in papers about poetry, but know that they also occur frequently in
papers about prose and drama.
Here
are some examples of common mistakes and how to fix them:
1.
The speaker says, “nothing like the sun,” to show that
his mistress is not beautiful in the conventional sense.
Problem:
the reader cannot tell what is “nothing like the sun.”
Right:
The speaker claims the eyes of his beloved are “nothing like the sun” to show
that she is not beautiful in the conventional sense.
2.
The speaker comments, “belied with false compare,” to let us know that other
poetry is not as truthful as his own.
Problem:
the reader has no idea what “belied with false compare” refers to;
grammatically this is incorrect because the quote lacks a subject.
Right:
The speaker claims that other women are “belied with false compare,” to let us
know that other poetry is not as truthful as his own.
3.
The speaker mentions, “my mistress reeks.”
Problem:
this is a misquotation. When looking at the context, we can see that the
speaker compares delightful perfumes to “the breath that from my mistress
reeks.” The context tells us that the speaker is not simply complaining that he
has a smelly mistress, but that he is talking about the smell of her breath.
Right:
The speaker mentions that there are perfumes that smell much better than “the
breath that from my mistress reeks.”
4.
The speaker playfully tells us “no such roses see I in
her cheeks.”
Problem:
if you haven’t set up the context, the reader may wonder who the “her” is that
is being referred to. The word “such” is also unclear to the reader. Always
check your quotes to see whether there are references or pronouns that you need
to explain.
Right:
The speaker lets us know he has seen many variegated roses. When it comes to
his mistress, however, he playfully tells us, “no such
roses see I in her cheeks.”
5.
The speaker lovingly declares at the end of the poem, “I think my love as
rare,” showing that his comparisons that come before do not detract from his love
for his mistress.
Problem:
As in the case of “such” in example 4, the quote contains a comparison but the
writer does not explain it. Whenever your quote contains “like,” “as,” or
“than” make clear what the comparison is about.
Right:
The speaker lovingly declares at the end of the poem that he “think[s] his love
as rare” as any woman who has been the subject of false poetic praise, showing
that his comparisons that come before do not detract from his love for his
mistress.
6.
Sonnet 130 contains unexpected statements about the speaker’s beloved. “My
mistress eyes are nothing like the sun.” This is a good example of how the poem
surprises us to comment on the conventions of the sonnet form.
Problem:
the writer has “dropped” the quote in the middle of his or her own text,
without adequately preparing the reader for it.
Right:
Sonnet 130 contains unexpected statements about the speaker’s beloved. For
instance, in the opening line, the speaker tells us, “My mistress eyes are
nothing like the sun.” This is a good example of how the poem surprises us to
comment on the conventions of the sonnet form.
There
are different rules for showing the reader that you have left words out of your
quote. The first thing to remember is that your reference must be inclusive—the
reader should be able to tell where the quote ends and where it begins. Don’t
leave out more than a few words or lines; if you need to quote bits that are far apart, use separate quotes.
The
rule is to use three periods, like this: . . .
You
do not need ellipsis at the end or beginning of the quote if it is clear that
you are quoting only part of a sentence. Ellipsis is generally used for words
left out in the middle of your quote or at the end of your quote if the
reader might otherwise think you have quoted the full sentence. Initial
ellipsis is only needed when you start your quote halfway through a sentence
and the reader might mistakenly think you’ve started it at the beginning of the
sentence—this is rare because capitalization will usually tell your reader what
you have done.
Here
is an example from The Book of Margery Kempe,
found in the Norton Anthology of English Literature:
The
original reads: “She slandered her husband, her friends, and her own self; she
spoke many a reprevous word and many a shrewd word;
she knew no virtue nor goodness; she desired all wickedness; like as the
spirits tempted her to say and do so she said and did. She would ’a fordone
herself many a time at their steering and ’a been
damned with them in Hell, and into witness thereof she bit her own hand so
violently that it was seen all her life after.”
1.
The account of Margery’s life before her vision of Christ makes clear that she
was a consummate sinner, who, among other sins, “slandered her husband . . .
and her own self” (Norton 368).
2.
In a catalogue of bad behavior, we find out that Margery was a bit of a shrew:
“She slandered her husband . . .; she spoke many a reprevous
word and many a shrew word” (Norton 368).
3.
Margery lets us know that the spirits ruled her behavior at this time: “She
would ’a fordone herself many a time at their steering . . .” (Norton 368).
You
should frequently use short quotes, sometimes a few lines, sometimes one word,
in your paper. The rules for quoting bits of prose and poetry vary a bit, but
for both, you need to use double quotation marks (preferably “smart quotes” and
not "straight quotes"). Note that there are no spaces between
the words in the quote and the quotation marks.
There
are two systems of punctuation when it comes to short quotes:
1.
When you give a reference, you leave out the final punctuation of your
quote (if there is any) and place it after the reference, like in this
short quote, taken from Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal, found in the
Norton Anthology of English Literature:
Swift
starts the proposal by calling the sight of the poor in
2.
When, for whatever reason, you do not need to give a reference, put your punctuation
inside the quotation marks, not outside it. The same sentence then looks
like this:
Swift
starts the proposal by calling the sight of the poor in
Here’s
how not to do it:
1.
Swift starts the proposal by calling the sight of the poor in
2.
Swift starts the proposal by calling the sight of beggars and poor in
A short quote in the middle of a sentence:
If
you want to place a short quote in the middle of your sentence, the same rules
for punctuation apply:
1.
When Swift starts his proposal by calling the sight of the Irish poor “a
melancholy object” (Norton 2473), he already makes us question the proposer’s attitude towards his subject.
2.
When Swift starts his proposal by calling the sight of the Irish poor “a
melancholy object,” he already makes us question the proposer’s
attitude towards his subject.
Note
that in both examples 2, the punctuation inside the quotation marks is mine, not
Swifts. I have left out any period or comma or semi-colon at the end of the
original quote and supplied my own period or comma.
Punctuation marks other than commas and periods:
Generally, punctuation marks
like dashes, colons, and semi-colons at the end of quotes will be included if
the quote occurs in the middle of your sentence and you are not providing a
reference. They will be left out if you are providing a reference or they come
at the end of your sentence, in which case they will be replaced by your own
final punctuation.
1. Francis Bacon uses the style of the proverb to draw
a conclusion about marriage, telling us, “Wives are young men’s mistresses,
companions for middle age, and old men’s nurses;” but his conclusion leaves us
with little sense of the complexity of marriage.
2. Francis Bacon uses the style of the proverb to draw
a conclusion about marriage, telling us, “Wives are young men’s mistresses,
companions for middle age, and old men’s nurses.” His conclusion leaves us with
little sense of the complexity of marriage.
3. Francis Bacon uses the style of the proverb to draw
a conclusion about marriage, telling us, “Wives are young men’s mistresses,
companions for middle age, and old men’s nurses” (Norton 1533). His conclusion
leaves us with little sense of the complexity of marriage.
A question mark or exclamation point:
The
only exception to the rules on punctuation is when there is question mark or an
exclamation point in the bit you are quoting. Here’s an example of a quote with
a question mark in it:
1.
Francis Bacon begins his essay on truth with Pilate’s challenging question,
“What is truth?” (Norton 1531).
2.
Francis Bacon begins his essay on truth with Pilate’s challenging question, “What
is truth?”
There
is an important difference: in 1 I have still added my punctuation after the
reference, to show that that is where my sentence ends, while in 2 I can now
leave out my punctuation as Pilate’s question mark ends the sentence.
Here’s
how not to do it:
1.
Francis Bacon begins his essay on truth with Pilate’s challenging question,
“What is truth” (Norton 1531)?
2.
Francis Bacon begins his essay on truth with Pilate’s challenging question,
“What is truth”?
However,
if the question mark or exclamation point is yours, not the quote’s, it has to be placed outside the quote, so that your reader
knows to whom it belongs:
1.
What does Bacon have in mind when he claims that some people “count it a bondage to fix a belief” (Norton 1531)?
2.
What does Bacon have in mind when he claims that some people “count it a bondage to fix a belief”?
A
short phrase of a few words or even just one may simply become part of your
sentence and does not need to be set off by punctuation. But a longer phrase or
a sentence should be set off from your sentence by placing a colon or a comma
before it. Use a colon if your own sentence that precedes it is grammatically
complete and a comma if it is incomplete.
Here
is an example, again from Swift’s A Modest Proposal:
1.
Swift’s proposer claims that he has heard from an
American that a young child is a good source of nutrition. To our horror and
surprise, he adds, “I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee
or a ragout” (Norton 2475).
2.
Swift’s proposer claims that he has heard from an
American that a young child is a good source of nutrition, adding, to our
horror and surprise, “I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee
or a ragout” (Norton 2475).
3.
Swift’s proposer claims that he is has
no hesitation about including a young child in different types of dishes: “I
make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee or a ragout” (Norton
2475).
In
the rare case that you find a quote within a quote, use double quotation marks
for the quote as a whole and single quotation marks
for the quote within. Here’s an example, from a footnote to Swift’s text:
The
Norton editor rightly claims that “The whole is an elaboration of a rather
trite metaphor: ‘The English are devouring the Irish.’ But there is nothing
trite about the pamphlet” (Norton 2473).
When
using a short quote from poetry, it makes a difference whether your quote runs
from one poetic line to another. If you’re just quoting from one line, the
rules are the same as for prose.
These
are some examples from Shakespeare’s famous sonnet 18:
1.
Shakespeare’s speaker calls his beloved “more lovely and more temperate” (l. 2)
than the “summer’s day” (l. 1) to which he compares him.
2.
Shakespeare’s speaker asks his beloved: “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s
day?” (l. 1).
3.
When Shakespeare’s speaker asks his beloved, “Shall I compare thee to a
summer’s day?” (l. 1), we expect that he will go on to show the extent of the
similarity between the two.
Note
that I have maintained Shakespeare’s capital letter at the beginning of the
line and that I have kept his question mark, following it by my own punctuation
after the reference.
When
your short quote runs over from one line to another, you need to show your
reader where one line ends and where the next line begins. You do this by using
a forward slash (/) to mark the division between lines and maintaining the
poem’s capitalization.
1.
In Sonnet 20, Shakespeare’s speaker attributes a great deal of power to his
beloved, calling him, “A man in hue all hues in his
controlling, / Which steals men’s eyes and women’s souls amazeth”
(ll. 7-8).
2.
The speaker uses his praise for the young man to express his anger towards
women, by claiming that unlike women the beloved is “not acquainted / With shifting change” (ll. 3-4).
Here’s
how not to do it:
1.
Shakespeare’s speaker calls his beloved “more lovely and more temperate (l. 2)”
than the “summer’s day (l. 1)” to which he compares him.
2.
The speaker uses his praise for the young man to express his anger towards
women, by claiming that unlike women the beloved is “not acquainted [w]ith shifting change” (ll. 3-4).
o
There should be no spaces between the quotation marks and what is
inside it.
o
When giving a reference, leave out final punctuation and place your
punctuation after the reference.
o
When not giving a reference, leave out final punctuation and place your
punctuation (if needed) inside the quotation marks.
o
Question marks and exclamation points are maintained inside the
quotation marks if they are part of the quote, outside if they are your own.
o
Other punctuation marks like colons and semi-colons are left out if
they come at the end of the quote.
o
A longer phrase or a sentence should be set off from your sentence, by
placing a colon before it if your introductory sentence is grammatically
complete or a comma if it is not.
o
For a quote within a quote, use double quotation marks for the quote as a whole and single quotation marks for the quote within.
o
For poetry, use a slash to show where the poetic line ends and the new
one begins.
o
Maintain the capitalization of quotes from poetry.
Only
use quotation marks for shorter quotes that are incorporated within your text.
Longer quotes need to be indented or offset from your text by one inch and do
not take quotation marks. The rules for what constitutes a short or a long
quote vary, but as a guideline, you can say a quote of three or more lines of
poetry or prose constitute a longer quote. In other words, a long quote is four
lines of poetry in the original poem or, in the case of prose,
the quote would take up at least three lines of your text if it were not
indented.
Here
is a quote from Stephen Greenblatt’s general
introduction to the Norton Shakespeare to show you how indented quotes
of prose should look:
The celebration of Shakespeare’s genius, eloquently
initiated by his friend and rival Ben Jonson, has over the centuries become an
institutionalized rite of civility. The person who does not love Shakespeare
has made, the rite implies, an incomplete adjustment not simply to a particular
culture—the English culture of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth
centuries—but to “culture” as a whole, the dense network of constraints and
entitlements, dreams and practices that links us to nature. (1)
You
should notice a number of mechanical features about the way I have indented
this quote.
·
The quote is indented by an inch.
·
Generally, long quotes are introduced by complete grammatical sentences
followed by a colon.
·
The quote has the same line spacing and font size as the rest of the
text.
·
The punctuation comes before the reference (1) and there is no
punctuation after the reference. This is where long quotes differ from short
quotes, where the opposite is the case.
·
There are no extra empty line spaces between the quote and my text.
·
There are no quotation marks around the indented quote.
·
There are double quotation marks around the word culture, copying those
that are in Greenblatt’s text.
·
The quote is only indented on the left, not on the right. To do this,
you simply select the quote (highlighting it using your mouse) and then click
on the “increase indent” symbol on your toolbar twice, if you’re using
Microsoft Word.
Here’s
how your indented quote should not look:
1.
The celebration of
Shakespeare’s genius, eloquently initiated by his friend and rival Ben Jonson,
has over the centuries become and institutionalized rite of civility. The
person who does not love Shakespeare has made, the rite implies, an incomplete
adjustment not simply to a particular culture—the English culture of the late
sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries—but to “culture” as a whole, the
dense network of constraints and entitlements, dreams and practices that links
us to nature. (1)
The
quote is centered as well as indented.
2.
The celebration of Shakespeare’s genius, eloquently
initiated by his friend and rival Ben Jonson, has over the centuries become and
institutionalized rite of civility. The person who does not love Shakespeare
has made, the rite implies, an incomplete adjustment not simply to a particular
culture—the English culture of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth
centuries—but to “culture” as a whole, the dense network of constraints and
entitlements, dreams and practices that links us to nature. (1)
The
quote is indented on both sides, not just on the left.
3.
The celebration of Shakespeare’s genius, eloquently
initiated by his friend and rival Ben Jonson, has over the centuries become and
institutionalized rite of civility. The person who does not love Shakespeare
has made, the rite implies, an incomplete adjustment not simply to a particular
culture—the English culture of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth
centuries—but to “culture” as a whole, the dense network of constraints and
entitlements, dreams and practices that links us to nature. (1)
The
quote is indented once on the left. Only click “increase indent” twice, so that
your quote is indented by an inch.
Many
of the same rules apply to longer quotes of poetry (that is three lines or more).
Here’s how a longer quote should look:
Look in thy glass, and tell the face thou viewest
Now is the time that face should form another,
Whose fresh repair if now thou not renewest
Thou dost beguile the world, unbless
some mother. (ll. 1-4)
This
quote is from Shakespeare’s Sonnet 3.
Note:
·
The quote is indented by an inch.
·
The punctuation comes before the reference and there is no punctuation
after the reference.
·
There are no extra empty line spaces between the quote and my text.
·
There are no quotation marks around the indented quote.
·
The quote is only indented on the left, not on the right. To do this,
you simply select the quote (highlighting it with your cursor) and then click
on the “increase indent” symbol on your toolbar twice, if you’re using
Microsoft Word.
·
The quote copies the poem exactly, including capital letters at
the beginning of each line.
Shakespeare and other early English drama
Shakespeare
and other early (medieval, early modern, or Restoration) drama pose a special
problem. The plays contain both poetry and prose, so before quoting anything
that spans more than one line, you need to check whether you are dealing with
poetry or prose and follow the rules for quotation accordingly. Fortunately, it
is very easy to find out whether you are looking at poetry or prose.
Prose
in drama looks as prose does normally: the first words of sentences are
capitalized and the lines do run to the end of the page.
Poetry
in drama looks as poetry does normally: the first words of lines are
capitalized and the lines do not run to the end of the page.
The
only complication is that sometimes TWO characters speak a poetic line together
(a favorite device of Shakespeare’s), so you need to be careful when looking at
lines that spill over from one character to the other. You can usually tell
because the editor puts the words of the second character after a long space,
to show that the two lines are really one and counted as such in the line
references.
Here
are some examples from Twelfth Night:
Prose
O, you are sick of self-love, Malvolio,
and taste with a distempered appetite. To be generous, guiltless, and of free
disposition is to take those things for birdbolts
that you deem cannon bullets. There is no slander in an allowed fool, though he
do nothing but rail; nor no railing in a known discreet man, though he do
nothing but reprove. (1.5.85-91)
Poetry
If music be the food of love, play on,
Give me excess of it that, surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken and so die. (1.1.1-3)
Poetry
spoken by more than one character
VIOLA. Who governs here?
CAPTAIN. A noble duke,
in nature
As in name.
VIOLA. What is his name?
CAPTAIN. Orsino.
(1.2.22-23)
When
quoting from Shakespeare or other early plays take these rules into account:
·
Always put in a reference, giving act, scene, and line numbers. Do not
give page numbers. Use arabic
numerals. If you prefer, you may use roman numerals for act and scene,
capitalizing act but not scene numerals (1.2.22 becomes I.ii.22).
·
In your reference, give the full range of lines quoted, not just the
first line.
·
Allow prose quotes to run the length of your own page; do not replicate
prose lines as they are in the text and do not worry about the fact that the
line references may not match the number of lines the quote takes up in your
essay.
·
There is no need to place the name of the character before your quote
as done above if there is only one person speaking. Simply make clear who is
speaking in introducing the quote. If you are using a longer quote in which
there are two characters or more speaking, type in the names as above in
capital letters followed by a period and indent them along with the rest of the
quote. Indent a character’s lines other than the first by an additional quarter
inch (as in “As in name” above).
·
Be careful about counting the lines in your references, especially when
it comes to poetry spoken by two characters or more. In the last example,
1.2.23 is only one line even though it looks as if there are three lines on the
page.