Quoting is an essential skill in academic writing. When used well, quotes strengthen your argument, provide authoritative evidence, and connect your ideas to established research. This guide breaks down everything you need to know—from how to cite quotes in different referencing styles to handling block quotes, modifying quotations, and knowing when quoting is appropriate.
When to Quote?
Not every sentence from a source needs to be quoted, and overusing quotations can make your work sound patchy or overly dependent on other writers. The key is knowing when the exact wording strengthens your argument and when your own explanation or paraphrase would be clearer and more effective. Use quotes purposefully: to capture memorable phrasing, present key definitions, show specific evidence, or analyse language that loses meaning if rewritten.
Examples: When to Quote?
Use these scenarios to decide whether a direct quote is the best fit for your writing
When Not to Quote?
You don’t need to quote every idea from your sources—sometimes quoting can interrupt the flow of your writing or make it sound overly dependent on other authors. In many cases, it’s better to paraphrase the idea in your own words, especially when the wording of the original text isn’t essential to your point. Quoting should be reserved for statements that are especially powerful, authoritative, or expressed so precisely that rephrasing would weaken the meaning.
Avoid quoting when the idea is simple, widely known, and not expressed in a unique or memorable way.
Original Text
“Regular exercise improves cardiovascular health and strengthens the body’s ability to manage stress.”Don’t Quote
“Regular exercise improves cardiovascular health and strengthens the body’s ability to manage stress.” (Author, Year)Better Approach — Paraphrase Instead
Regular exercise benefits heart health and helps the body handle stress more effectively. (Author, Year)
Using Introductory Phrases When Quoting
Introductory phrases help you smoothly integrate a quote into your writing instead of dropping it abruptly. They signal to the reader who is speaking and why the quote matters. These phrases often include the author’s name and a reporting verb such as states, argues, explains, notes, or observes.
Common introductory phrases
How to Quote in Different Styles?
Quoting may seem straightforward—just copy the author’s words and add quotation marks—but academic writing requires more precision. Each referencing style has its own rules for how quotes should appear in the text, how they’re formatted, and where citations are placed. The guidelines below show how quoting works and how citation formatting changes depending on the referencing style you’re using.
Shortening or Altering a Quote
Sometimes a quote is too long or contains unnecessary details. Academic writing allows you to shorten, remove, or slightly modify parts of a quotation—as long as you do it honestly and accurately. To do this correctly, you use three key tools:
These tools help you integrate quotations more naturally into your writing without misrepresenting the author’s meaning. Below are examples that show how each method works in practice and how to apply them correctly in academic writing.
Use an ellipsis when you want to remove unnecessary words while keeping the meaning intact.
Original Quote
“Regular physical activity significantly improves mental health by reducing stress, improving mood, and enhancing overall emotional resilience.”Shortened Quote
“Regular physical activity significantly improves mental health … and enhances overall emotional resilience.”
Square brackets let you add or adjust words so the quote fits your sentence naturally.
Original Quote
“They found that the participants improved their mental health.”Revised Quote
“[The researchers] found that the participants improved their mental health [after the 12-week program].”
Minor edits keep your sentence grammatically smooth
Original Quote
“I believe physical activity is essential.”Revised Quote
The author writes that they “believe physical activity is essential.”
Only use sic when reproducing an error from the source.
Original Quote
“Their study showd the results clearly.”Revised Quote
“Their study showd [sic] the results clearly.”
Single Quote vs Block Quote
Your quoting style changes with the length of the passage. Short excerpts belong inside quotation marks, while longer passages must be formatted as block quotes. Knowing the difference helps you keep your writing clean, professional, and academically accurate.
Use a short quote for brief excerpts (under 4 lines or 40 words), placed in quotation marks within your paragraph.
As Morrison notes, “language alone protects us from the scariness of things with no names” (Morrison, 1987, p. 13).
Use a block quote for longer passages, placing the text on a new, indented line without quotation marks.
Orwell offers a detailed description of the oppressive atmosphere he experienced:
It was three o’clock in the afternoon on a hot, still day. The glare was dazzling, and a cloud of flies hung in the air above the prisoners. Even the superintendent seemed ill at ease as he walked up and down, looking at no one in particular.
(Orwell, 1931, p. 2)
Quote Within a Quote
When you quote a sentence that already contains a quotation, you must show both layers clearly. To do this, you keep the outer quotation marks for your own quote and the inner quotation marks exactly as they appear in the original text. This helps readers see which words belong to the author you’re quoting, and which words belong to the person they were quoting.
Use double quotes to enclose the main quote and single quotes mark a quote within it.
Original Quote
“Participants frequently reported that they felt ‘a loss of control’ during the experiment”Revised Quote
The researcher notes, “Participants frequently reported that they felt ‘a loss of control’ during the experiment,” highlighting the emotional impact of the study.
Quoting Text Containing Citation
Quoting a source that already includes its own citation can be tricky, but academic writing provides a simple way to handle it. When you want to use such a passage, you must keep the original citation intact and add a reference to the source you actually consulted. This ensures accuracy and transparency in your work.
You preserve the original citation, add “quoted in” to credit the source you actually read
Original Text (from Adams, 2022)
“Digital learning environments can enhance student motivation when designed with interactive elements” (Lee, 2020, p. 14).How You Quote It in Your Work
Adams reports that “digital learning environments can enhance student motivation when designed with interactive elements” (Lee, 2020, p. 14, quoted in Adams, 2022, p. 56).
Avoid Long Paragraphs and Over-Quoting
Quoting too much—especially in long blocks—can overwhelm your writing and drown out your own voice. If most of your paragraph is made up of other people’s words, your argument becomes harder to follow and your work looks more like a compilation than original thinking. Quotes should support your ideas, not carry the entire discussion. Whenever the exact wording isn’t essential, paraphrase instead to keep your writing clear, concise, and genuinely yours.
