Quotation Format Techniques
5 Quotation Format Techniques
- Tagging
- Blending
- Modifying
- Omitting
- Block quoting
Tagging
- Rules:
- Comma after the tag
- Capital letter to start the quotation
- Examples:
- Kingsnorth said, “But religions do not own the sacred.”
- The author argues, “Serial killing is glam killing” (Klosterman).
Blending
- Rules:
- No comma after the tag
- No capital letter to start the quotation
- Examples:
- A skilled writer must first “see a choice wherever there is one” (Barzun 11).
- Klosterman wonders whether displaying Gacy’s paintings “perpetuates the gothic glamour of mass murder.”
Modifying
- Rules:
- Brackets around changes
- Parenthetical explanations as needed
- Examples:
- Lovecraft said, “The appeal of the spectrally macabre [in literature] is generally narrow because it demands from the reader a certain degree of imagination and a capacity for detachment from everyday life.”
- There are valid criticisms of de-extinction, but Kingsnorth cares “about the invalid criticisms” (emphasis added).
- “[T]he invalid criticisms” of de-extinction interest Kingsnorth the most.
Omitting
- Rules:
- Ellipsis marks (…) for what you skip over (space on either side)
- Not needed for obvious omissions before and after quotations
- Period plus ellipses when needed (four dots)
- Examples:
- Orwell says, “The wretched prisoners … oppressed me with an intolerable sense of guilt.”
- “I had already made up my mind that imperialism was an evil thing and the sooner I chucked up my job and got out of it the better. … I hated it more bitterly than I can perhaps make clear” (Orwell).
Block Quoting
- Rules:
- For more than four lines
- No quotation marks
- Parenthetical outside the period
- Indent all lines
- Example:
