Short quotations should be preceded by a comma. (Note
that short usually means around three lines of
text or poetry.)
• It was then that she said, “Do as you
please. I wash my hands of you.”
Omit the introductory comma if the quotation fits grammatically
into the sentence.
• Micheldene claimed that “outside every
fat man there was an even fatter man trying to close in.”
Longish quotations are often introduced by a colon.
• Benjamin Franklin offers witty advice
on how to ferret out a woman’s faults: “I am about courting a girl
I have had but little acquaintance with. How shall I come to a knowledge
of her faults, and whether she has the virtues I imagine she has? Answer. Commend
her among her female acquaintance.”
Always place question marks, exclamation points, semicolons,
and colons outside closing quotation marks—unless they are part
of the original quotation.
• How can you question
the genius of Led Zepplin’s immortal words, “Oh oh oh oh oh, you
don’t have to go”?
The speaker is asking the question, so the question
mark goes outside the quotation marks.
• Then Antony cries, “Fie,
wrangling queen!”
In this instance, the exclamation point is part of
the original quotation.
Long quotations are usually set off (started
on a new line, indented, sometimes set in a smaller or different
font than the regular text, and sometimes spaced closer between
lines than the regular text). Long quotations may also be run
in (enclosed in quotation marks and formatted as part of
the regular text, as short quotations are).
Quotations longer than one hundred words should be
set off; so should poetry and quotations that are longer than one
paragraph.
• Wilde’s story “The Remarkable Rocket”
begins in classic fairy-tale style.
The King’s son was going to be married, so there were
general rejoicings. He had waited a whole year for his bride, and
at last she had arrived. She was a Russian Princess, and had driven
all the way from Finland in a sledge drawn by six reindeer. The
sledge was shaped like a great golden swan, and between the swan’s wings lay the little Princess
herself. Her long ermine cloak reached right down to her feet, on
her head was a tiny cap of silver tissue, and she was as pale as
the Snow Palace in which she had always lived. So pale was she that
as she drove through the streets all the people wondered. “She is
like a white rose!” they cried, and they threw down flowers on her
from the balconies.
At the gate of the Castle the Prince was waiting
to receive her. He had dreamy violet eyes, and his hair was like
fine gold. When he saw her he sank upon one knee, and kissed her
hand.
If one character or person’s dialogue goes on for more
than one paragraph, it is common to include opening quotation marks
before each new paragraph. Only the last paragraph gets closing
quotation marks.
• With a modest smile, Bobby said,
“When I first arrived, I dreamed of starring
in a Broadway show. And sure enough, I got a great part after just
two auditions.
“Of course, I happen to be stunningly beautiful
and unbelievably talented.”
Quotations of three or more lines of poetry should
be set off from the main text.
• In his poem “Heaven,” Rupert Brooke
writes,
Fish say, they have their Stream and Pond;
But is there anything Beyond?
This life cannot be All, they swear,
For how unpleasant, if it were!
If you’re quoting two lines of poetry, you can run
them in. In this case, separate the lines with slashes. Put spaces
on either side of the slashes.
• Brooke gently satirizes the human predicament
with the lines, “Fish say, they have their Stream and Pond; / But
is there anything Beyond?”
If a run-in quotation itself contains words in quotation
marks, use single quotation marks around those words.
• The breathless narrator exclaims, “Jack
said, ‘You’re pretty,’ and I practically fainted. Then he said,
‘I like your shoes’!”
In set-off quotations, which are not surrounded by
quotation marks, use double quotation marks around quoted material.
• The breathless narrator delivers a
nearly hysterical description of her day:
Jack said, “You’re pretty,” and I practically
fainted. Then he said,
“I like your shoes”!
To omit part of a sentence from quoted material, replace
the sentence with three ellipsis dots separated on all sides by
spaces.
• Bertie muses, “Well . . . when a girl
suddenly asks you out of the clear blue sky if you don’t sometimes
feel that the stars are God’s daisy-chain, you begin to think a
bit.”
To omit a sentence or sentences from quoted material,
replace the deleted material with four ellipsis dots. Don’t insert
a space before the first dot (the first dot functions as the period);
do insert spaces between the following three.
• Bertie is sure we’ll agree: “You know
how it is with some girls. . . . There is something about their
personality that paralyses the vocal cords and reduces the contents
of the brain to cauliflower.”
Indicate the omission of a paragraph (and a full sentence;
see below) with four ellipsis points before the omitted paragraph.
• In Chapter 4, Bertie’s aunt pays him
a visit.
It has been well said of Bertram Wooster that, while
no one views his flesh and blood with a keener and more remorselessly critical eye, he is
nevertheless a man who delights in giving credit where credit is
due. And if you have followed these memoirs of mine with the proper
care, you will be aware that I have frequently had occasion to emphasise
the fact that Aunt Dahlia
is all right. . . .
This being so, you may conceive
of my astonishment at finding her at my bedside at such an hour.
There is no need to use ellipses at the beginning or
end of sentences, even if you’re starting to quote in the middle
of a sentence or stopping before the end of one. Just plunge in
or stop abruptly, with no fussing over ellipses.
• Wodehouse writes, “I know, because
I wear them myself, and I am a singularly romantic figure.”
• Bertie describes him as “one of those
freaks you come across from time to time during life’s journey who
can’t stand London.”
Respect the author’s original marks. It’s fine to retain
commas from the original sentence, and to place question marks,
exclamation points, etc., after three ellipsis dots if they come
at the end of the original sentence.
• Callahan says, “Teach your child respect
for himself and others, . . . and you’ll be doing the best you can.”
• He writes, “Have you ever considered
the latent possibilities for dramatic situations . . . ?”
When quoting material, it’s okay to place periods and
commas before the closing quotation marks even if those marks don’t
occur in the original text. It’s also fine to replace a comma from
the original text with a period if that works better for your sentence,
and vice versa.
• In a letter, Henry James wrote, “It’s
a complex fate, being an American.”
The basic rule: unless you’re quoting legal material
or working under unusually formal circumstances, you’re allowed
to change capitals to lowercase letters and vice versa. There is
no need to bracket the changed letter to show that you’ve changed
it.
• Angry about his early
bedtime, Dane cursed his mother with a cry of “fie, wrangling queen!”
Fie, which is capitalized in the original,
has been lowercased.
• Wodehouse expresses my
feelings precisely: “If you want to get me out of New York, you
will have to use dynamite.”
If, which is lowercased in the original,
has been uppercased.
You can also lowercase the first word
of a set-off quotation if your
sentence structure calls for it.
• After the first mysterious groan sounded,
a solemn silence ensued, and marks of fear were visible
upon all
three faces . . .
In legal contexts and some very formal writing, you
might want to bracket capital letters you’ve changed to lowercase,
and vice versa.
• The contract stipulates that the manuscript
will be delivered “[n]o later than August 1, 2007.”
A very formal method of quotation requires you to place
periods and commas outside closing quotation marks if those marks
don’t occur in the original text. This method is used in Britain
much more than it is in America. It may be required in some American
universities or for some scholarly works.
• In a letter, Henry James wrote, “It’s
a complex fate, being an American”.
Don’t use quoting as an excuse to lose control of grammar.
Quotations must fit grammatically into your text.
• The critic suggests that the murderer’s
“cunning . . . in combination with his bravado” led to his success.
Be sure that your text still makes sense after you’ve
omitted parts of a quotation. Don’t allow any stray phrases or incomplete
sentences to slip in.
• Wallace asserts that “Mr. Updike .
. . has for years been constructing protagonists who are basically
all the same guy . . . and who are all clearly stand-ins for the author
himself.”
In particular, make sure your own tense and the tense
of the quoted material match up. The best way to do this is to choose
your quoted material carefully, avoiding any unwanted tenses. Ideally,
you can avoid the problem altogether.
• No one can stand Daniel. Like Austen’s
Mr. Collins, he isn’t “a sensible man” and “the deficiency of nature”
hasn’t been remedied “by education or society.”
If you simply can’t work around the problem, it’s okay
to change the text and bracket your changes. Use this device as
little as possible.
• Like Galsworthy’s character, he enjoys
a privileged childhood and “[has] never heard his father or his
mother speak in an angry voice, either to each other, himself, or
anybody else.”
The word sic, in brackets, can be
inserted to show that a grammatical mistake or a misspelling is
the author’s fault, not yours. Try to avoid
the use of sic, however; it’s snotty and makes
you sound scornful. It’s best used if your readers could be baffled
by quotations from books written in non-American English, or by
outmoded spellings or phrasings. For example, some readers might
be puzzled by the English spelling
of emphasise and assume that the writer made a
mistake. Sic could be useful in this case.
• Bertie says, “you will be aware that
I have frequently had occasion to emphasise [sic]
the fact that Aunt Dahlia is all right.”
