Any paper that you write is guided by your ideas and organization; the borrowed material is there to help support and lend credibility to any points you want to make. You control how the audience understands your ideas. Do not let someone else’s words interrupt your control of your paper.
It is better to paraphrase than to quote. Quotations tend to draw attention to themselves and away from your ideas, so keep them to a minimum, and keep them short. If you can quote a few words or a phrase instead of an entire sentence, do it. These partial quotes blend your ideas with reference material.
There are three reasons why you might prefer quotation over paraphrase for a piece of source material:
- authority: Some statements are more convincing coming right from the source.
- precision: When an author’s use of words is concise and exactly what you want the audience to understand.
- vividness: A source may phrase something in a particularly descriptive way that would be lost in paraphrase.
Most material can and should be paraphrased, but there are instances in which the original carries a weight that paraphrasing cannot capture. Those are the times when you should quote. A paper without any direct quotations would seem remiss. A paper without any quotes would seem amiss.
Video
This video from Shania Trapedo will help you visualize how a quote is embedded into a paper.
Slide Presentation
There is no voice over for the presentation.
Handout
For more information and further visual representation, download this handout from Ashford University Writing Center.
