Using quotations effectively

The correct versions are as follows:

1. As Wcziskiewicz (1999) states,'public spending must increase before we see an improvement in public services'. There should be a comma before the quotation mark.

2. As Baird (2003:12) points out, / Baird (2003:12) points out that, 'GM food technology was thought to be in its infancy as little as three years ago'. Either as or that can be used as a reporting device but not both.

3. Smith (1992) points out that, 'the introduction of family credit has encouraged some mothers not to work'. Says is an inappropriate reporting verb in academic writing. You should use a more formal alternative such as points out or notes.

4. Cansdell (2003) states that, 'prohibitive pricing has caused sales of G3 technology to fall well below expectations'. We do not use the first name of the writer in the text. Just put the writer's surname in the text (and the surname and initial(s) in your bibliography).

5. Ashurst [3] claims that, 'it is far from obvious how to define social responsibility for multi-national companies'. Here the writer has omitted quotation marks.

1. Cooper (1995:298) defines drug abuse as, 'the incorrect or improper use of any illegal or legal drug'.  It is not necessary to repeat words both in your text and in the quotation.

2. Borowski [5] notes that, 'few companies actively encourage such research'.  It is not necessary to write the name of the journal or book in your text.

3. Clarke [1] reports that, 'the inadequate data collection procedures rendered the experiment meaningless'. There should be a comma after that.

4. As Gray (1997) points out, 'even the most sophisticated anti-virus software has great difficulty coping with the ever-increasing number of viruses.' A comma rather than a colon should be used before the quotation.

5. As Czerwiec [16] points out, 'the composition of the peel oil from Shima-mikan resembles more closely the oil of the Mediterranean mandarin'. The elipsis ('...') is not necessary to indicate missing words at the beginning of a quote, when the quote fits into the flow of your sentence. Equally, it is not necessary here to indicate missing words at the end of the quote, since the words that are quoted fit grammatically into the whole sentence structure, which ends appropriately with a full-stop.

Ideas can often be expressed more clearly when they are paraphrased, especially if the language in the source text is difficult to understand or technical.

As a rough guide, it has been recommended that quotations should account for no more than 10% of a piece of writing. Although the balance between use of direct quotation and of paraphrase can vary depending on your subject or the type of writing you are involved in, it is generally a good policy not to have too many quotations. This is mainly because we should consider quotations as occurring only when they are essential for one reason or another.

1. Use a quotation if you feel that it is going to make a considerable contribution to your work. This could be by developing your argument significantly, or by providing an important illustration or example.

2. A quotation is appropriate if you believe that the exact words are essential to understanding the meaning you want to present.

3. I f you want to present the core ideas of another writer which are central to the development of your argument you should choose a quotation. For example, you may want to present an opinion of another author, which you disagree with before you explain why you disagree with it. This is a particularly good idea if the words you take are vivid, or the idea is expressed in a memorable way.

4. Use a quotation if the information you want to use is central to your text or argument but difficult to paraphrase. This may be for certain types of technical information, or information from special sources such as legal or government documents.

All four of the above statements refer to the use of quotations. From this you can see that there are very particular reasons for using direct quotations and in most cases we would therefore expect to find far more examples of paraphrasing than direct quotation in academic writing. However, there are also other factors to take into consideration when trying to create this kind of balance.

Paraphrasing: try to avoid paraphrasing more than two or three sentences. This is also important for avoiding plagiarism, which can easily result from extended paraphrasing.

Quotation: try to avoid more than one sentence at a time. On the rare occasions when you feel it is necessary to quote a text which has more than three or four lines, consider presenting it in a different way.

One acceptable way to present a longer quotation is to indent the quote from the left margin (0.5cm). You may also wish to use a slightly smaller font or italicise it. Leave a space before and after the quote, not forgetting to include the reference information. Here is an example:

The description of the team worker, however, did not appear to fit my own intuitive assessment of Mr Chong in any way. According to Handy's (1985) summary of Belbin:

(This person) holds the team together...by being supportive to others by listening, encouraging, harmonizing and understanding. Likeable and popular, but uncompetitive, he is the sort of person you do not notice when he's there, but miss when he isn't. (1985: 167)

On discussing the role of team worker with Mr Chong it emerged that he had misunderstood the description of this role.

(Houghton, D. 1991)