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Mentor Texts

Quoting and Paraphrasing Experts and Research: The Times Tip Column

This short, engaging column can teach you a few moves for incorporating information from sources into an essay.

By Katherine Schulten

Our new Mentor Text series spotlights writing from The Times that students can learn from and emulate.

This entry aims to help support those participating in our STEM-writing contest , in which students are invited to choose an issue or question in science, technology, engineering, math or health that interests them, then write a 500-word explanation that will engage and enlighten readers.

For even more on how to help your students write interesting, clear and meaningful informational pieces, please see our related writing unit .

All informational journalism quotes experts and stakeholders. That’s the journalist’s job — to gather information from a range of sources so that the resulting article is authoritative and balanced.

Page or click through The Times or any other news source and you’ll see. You would of course expect front-page articles about serious issues to reference multiple perspectives the way this one on the coronavirus does, quoting patients, Chinese officials, public health experts and scientists who study virology. But if you check out pieces from sections like Style and Sports, you’ll notice the same. Whether you’re reading a piece on social-media influencers or skateboarding , you’ll see that the writer has included a range of points of view.

If you’re writing your own piece, perhaps for our contest , you might be wondering, how do you choose the right people to quote? How do you use the information they give you? Even if you’re not conducting live interviews the way journalists do, any research-based writing task requires you to learn how to weave in the information you find in books or other sources. So when do you quote and when do you paraphrase? How do you do both of those things seamlessly?

For this edition of Mentor Texts, we’ve chosen to spotlight the short, engaging Tip column that appears weekly in the Magazine. Here’s why it’s so useful:

It is written to a practical and engaging formula, one you are welcome to follow if you are participating in our STEM-writing contest .

The column is usually no more than 400 words long. Since our contest gives you only 500 words to work with, Tip can show you how to impart a wealth of interesting information in just a few paragraphs.

Because it is so short, each edition is built around an interview with a single expert. Noting what expert the author, Malia Wollan, chooses and how she uses the resulting information can help you see when to quote and when to paraphrase, and teach you how to do both gracefully.

Here are some ways to do that.

First: Spot the Pattern

Choose three articles from the Tip column , whichever you think will interest you most.

For instance, you might choose …

How to survive a shark attack , rip current , flu pandemic or bear encounter .

How to build a sand castle , moat , bat box or latrine .

Or, how to thwart facial recognition , prepare yourself for space , attract butterflies , talk to dogs , or find a four-leaf clover .

After you’ve read three, answer these questions: What do you notice about the structure of a Tip column? That is, what predictable elements can readers expect to find in every edition?

Next: Examine Three Short Mentor Texts

If you went through the exercise above, you no doubt noticed this pattern:

The first line of all Tip articles is a quote from an expert. ( For example , “Hit the shark in the eyes and gills,” says Sarah Waries, the chief executive of Shark Spotters, an organization in Cape Town that employs 30 specialists to scan the city’s beaches with binoculars from the cliffs and sound the alarm when they see one in the water.” )

That same expert gives background and advice throughout the piece. ( “It’s critical to stop the bleeding,” Waries says. )

The expert also usually gets the last word in the form of a final, fitting quote. ( “Sharks are everywhere,” Waries says. “They’re in all the oceans.” )

Below are three STEM-focused articles from this column that we have chosen as mentors. We’ve excerpted the first paragraph of each, but please read them all in full.

“ How to Enjoy Snowflakes ”:

“It’s easier to appreciate snowflakes when you don’t have a shovel in your hand,” says Kenneth G. Libbrecht, a professor of physics at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Calif., who studies snowflake morphology by growing ice crystals in his laboratory. Go out in the snow with dark clothing on and let a few flakes fall on your coat. Peer at them through a magnifying glass. Don’t assume you’ll see the archetypal, branching-star type called stellar dendrites, which require temperatures around minus 15 degrees Celsius. To see those in the wild, Libbrecht travels to a small town in northeastern Ontario. “The people there think I’m crazy,” he says.

“ How to Hold a Venomous Snake ”:

‘‘The snake will defecate on you,’’ says Jim Harrison, who extracts venom from approximately 1,000 snakes every week for use in drug research and development. Learn to ignore the stink. Collecting venom requires pinching a snake firmly behind its skull until it clamps its fangs over a sterile collection vial; snakes will squirt excreta in an effort to escape. ‘‘When I’m done extracting the cobras, I’m covered in feces and my wife won’t come close to me,’’ Harrison says.

“ How to Fast ”:

“Fasting is mental over physical, just like basketball and most other stuff in life,” says Enes Kanter, the 6-foot-11 center for the Portland Trail Blazers. Raised in Turkey, Kanter, 27, is a Muslim who has fasted from sunrise to sunset during the month of Ramadan since he was 8. This season, Ramadan aligned with the N.B.A. playoffs, so Kanter fasted through seven playoff games . During the year he forgoes food and water a day or two a week. “Don’t be scared to try it,” he says.

Now, answer these questions:

Whom does the writer quote in each of these columns? Why do you think the author chose them? Do you think they were good sources of information?

Look closely at when the author chooses to quote the experts and when she paraphrases the information they gave her. What is the difference? Why do you think she chose to quote the lines she did? Give some examples from the pieces to explain your reasoning.

What do you notice about how she works in quotations? How does she introduce them so they make sense and add a little color? For instance, the second paragraph of “How to Hold a Venomous Snake” begins this way: “Unless you’re a trained venom extractor, don’t pick up a snake with your hands. Even zookeepers and herpetologists keep out of striking distance by scooping speci­mens up with a pole called a snake hook. ‘Everybody thinks they know what they’re doing because they saw it on YouTube,’ Harrison says.” How do the first two sentences give practical information that leads us into the YouTube quote? How does that quote add a bit of humor to the piece?

Finally, look closely at the quotes that begin and end each piece. How would you describe the differences? Would the quotes work if they were flipped? What about any quotes you find in the middle paragraphs of these pieces? What observations can you make in general about the structure of a Tip column and how quotations work to build that structure?

Before you go, one last thing to notice. You may have been taught in school to cite your sources by using footnotes, or by putting them in parentheses after you’ve referenced the information. That’s not how journalists do it, yet they still make their sources clear.

If the article is online-only, sources are sometimes linked. For pieces like Tip, which appear both online and in print, sources are referenced in the reporting. For example, direct quotes, like “It’s critical to stop the bleeding,” from the shark piece, above, will have a “[name of person] says” somewhere in the sentence (“Waries says”). Paraphrases often start with a lead-in like, “According to …” or “Studies have found …” The Tip column quotes only one expert each week, so there is no need to keep adding “According to,” but, to continue our shark theme, notice the ways this paragraph from an Aug. 2019 article, “ How Sharks Glow to Each Other Deep in the Ocean ,” acknowledges its source:

In a study published Thursday in iScience , researchers reveal the secret behind this magical transformation: Molecules inside their scales transform how shark skin interacts with light, bringing in blue photons, and sending out green. This improved understanding of these sharks’ luminous illusions may lead to improvements in scientific imaging, as the study of biofluorescence in other marine life already has.

How does the first sentence make clear that the information comes from a particular study? How does the use of a colon help?

Now Try This: Make a List of Reliable Sources

Massive shark spotted in cape cod, great white sharks have become increasingly prevalent along the beaches in cape cod in massachusetts. last year was the state’s first fatal shark attack since 1936..

“Whoa. No way. Oh my God.” “Hold on, you guys. Hold on.” “Holy [expletive].” “It just hit the boat.” “Oh my God.” “Oh my God.” “Wow.” “Left, left.” “Dad, come look at it. Dad, come, come over here. Dad.”

We started with sharks, and we’re ending with sharks.

Let’s pretend that you’re a journalist, it’s summer, and there have been a rash of shark attacks in the United States and around the world. Your editor gives you not just the 400 words Malia Wollan got to write about how to survive a shark attack, but, instead, 1,200, three times that number. She assigns you to investigate the question: Should swimmers worry about sharks?

How will you find out? Whom will you interview? What information will you be looking for? What individuals, institutions and organizations might be reliable experts or stakeholders on this question? How will you know they’re reliable? What kinds of studies and statistics might you need, and how will you know those are reliable?

Make as long of a list as you can of all the people and places you might consult to get a full answer to that question, then share your list with others.

Then take a look at a 2015 Times piece in which the reporter Christine Hauser answers the very question we posed above : Should swimmers worry about sharks? What experts and organizations does she seem to have consulted? How many of them are similar to what you put on your list? Are there any she’s missing that she might have included if she had another 1,000 words to work with? How did she work the information in, both via direct quotes and paraphrases?

Finally, now that you’ve gone through all the exercises in this lesson, your next assignment is, of course, to figure out who and what expert sources to consult to find a range of information about whatever you’re writing about — then borrow some of the “writer’s moves” above to weave that information into your essay as seamlessly as you can. Good luck!

Related Questions for Any Informational Piece That Quotes Experts

Look through the piece. How many sources, whether they’re people or institutions, are named? How many are quoted, and how many are cited as the source of paraphrased information? How are they cited? What do those sources add to the piece?

Why do you think the author chose these sources? How reliable do they seem? How do you know?

How is the information from experts woven into the piece? How are quotes introduced? How do paraphrases make the source of the information clear?

What points of view, if any, are missing? What experts or stakeholders could this person have interviewed to get those points of view? Why?

What else do you notice or admire about this piece? What lessons might it have for your writing?

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Using Evidence: Effective Paraphrasing Strategies

Effective paraphrasing strategies.

If you are having trouble paraphrasing a text effectively, try following these steps:

• Reread the original passage you wish to paraphrase, looking up any words you do not recognize, until you think you understand the full meaning of and intention behind the author's words.
• Next, cover or hide the passage. Once the passage is hidden from view, write out the author's idea, in your own words, as if you were explaining it to your instructor or classmates.

Have I accurately addressed the author's ideas in a new way that is unique to my writing style and scholarly voice? Have I tried to replicate the author's idea or have I simply changed words around in his/her original sentence(s)?

• Last, include a citation, which should contain the author's name, the year, and the page or paragraph number (if available), directly following your paraphrase.

Paraphrasing Sources Videos

• Paraphrasing Strategies Video
• Paraphrasing Process Demonstration Video

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Purdue Online Writing Lab Purdue OWL® College of Liberal Arts

Paraphrase: Write It in Your Own Words

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Paraphrasing is one way to use a text in your own writing without directly quoting source material. Anytime you are taking information from a source that is not your own, you need to specify where you got that information.

A paraphrase is...

• Your own rendition of essential information and ideas expressed by someone else, presented in a new form.
• One legitimate way (when accompanied by accurate documentation) to borrow from a source.
• A more detailed restatement than a summary, which focuses concisely on a single main idea.

Paraphrasing is a valuable skill because...

• It is better than quoting information from an undistinguished passage.
• It helps you control the temptation to quote too much.
• The mental process required for successful paraphrasing helps you to grasp the full meaning of the original.

6 Steps to Effective Paraphrasing

• Reread the original passage until you understand its full meaning.
• Set the original aside, and write your paraphrase on a note card.
• Jot down a few words below your paraphrase to remind you later how you envision using this material. At the top of the note card, write a key word or phrase to indicate the subject of your paraphrase.
• Check your rendition with the original to make sure that your version accurately expresses all the essential information in a new form.
• Use quotation marks to identify any unique term or phraseology you have borrowed exactly from the source.
• Record the source (including the page) on your note card so that you can credit it easily if you decide to incorporate the material into your paper.

Some examples to compare

Note that the examples in this section use MLA style for in-text citation.

The original passage:

Students frequently overuse direct quotation in taking notes, and as a result they overuse quotations in the final [research] paper. Probably only about 10% of your final manuscript should appear as directly quoted matter. Therefore, you should strive to limit the amount of exact transcribing of source materials while taking notes. Lester, James D. Writing Research Papers . 2nd ed., 1976, pp. 46-47.

A legitimate paraphrase:

In research papers, students often quote excessively, failing to keep quoted material down to a desirable level. Since the problem usually originates during note taking, it is essential to minimize the material recorded verbatim (Lester 46-47).

An acceptable summary:

Students should take just a few notes in direct quotation from sources to help minimize the amount of quoted material in a research paper (Lester 46-47).

A plagiarized version:

Students often use too many direct quotations when they take notes, resulting in too many of them in the final research paper. In fact, probably only about 10% of the final copy should consist of directly quoted material. So it is important to limit the amount of source material copied while taking notes.

A note about plagiarism: This example has been classed as plagiarism, in part, because of its failure to deploy any citation. Plagiarism is a serious offense in the academic world. However, we acknowledge that plagiarism is a difficult term to define; that its definition may be contextually sensitive; and that not all instances of plagiarism are created equal—that is, there are varying “degrees of egregiousness” for different cases of plagiarism.

Paraphrasing Tool

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Avoid plagiarism in your paraphrased text

What's a paraphrasing tool?

A paraphrasing tool is an AI-powered solution to help you quickly reword text by replacing certain words with synonyms or restructuring sentences. A paraphraser is ideal for rephrasing articles, essays, and various types of content, making the rewriting process seamless and effective.

What's paraphrasing?

Paraphrasing means expressing someone else’s ideas or thoughts in your own words while maintaining the original meaning. It can make your text more concise, clear, and suitable for a specific audience. Paraphrasing is an important skill in both academic writing and professional communication.

Why use this paraphrasing tool?

• Save time: Gone are the days when you had to reword sentences yourself; now you can rewrite an individual sentence or a complete text with one click.
• Improve your writing: Your writing will always be clear and easy to understand. Automatically ensure consistent language throughout. 
• Preserve original meaning: Paraphrase without fear of losing the point of your text.
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Features of the paraphrasing tool

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Paraphrase a whole text

Our paraphraser can also help with longer passages (up to 125 words per input). Upload your document or copy your text into the input field.

With one click, you can reformulate the entire text.

Find synonyms with ease

Simply click on any word to open the interactive thesaurus.

• Choose from a list of suggested synonyms
• Find the synonym with the most appropriate meaning
• Replace the word with a single click

Paraphrase in two ways

• Standard: Offers a compromise between modifying and preserving the meaning of the original text
• Fluency: Improves language and corrects grammatical mistakes

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Upload any Microsoft Word document, Google Doc, or PDF into the paraphrasing tool.

Download or copy your results

After you’re done, you can easily download or copy your text to use somewhere else.

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The paraphrasing tool uses natural language processing to rewrite any text you give it. This way, you can paraphrase any text within seconds.

How does this paraphrasing tool work?

1. put your text into the paraphraser, 2. select your method of paraphrasing, 3. select the quantity of synonyms you want, 4. edit your text where needed, who can use this paraphrasing tool.

Paraphrasing tools can help students to understand texts and improve the quality of their writing. 

Create original lesson plans, presentations, or other educational materials.

Researchers

Explain complex concepts or ideas to a wider audience. 

Journalists

Quickly and easily rephrase text to avoid repetitive language.

Copywriters

By using a paraphrasing tool, you can quickly and easily rework existing content to create something new and unique.

Bloggers can rewrite existing content to make it their own.

Writers who need to rewrite content, such as adapting an article for a different context or writing content for a different audience.

A paraphrasing tool lets you quickly rewrite your original content for each medium, ensuring you reach the right audience on each platform.

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Frequently asked questions

The act of putting someone else’s ideas or words into your own words is called paraphrasing, rephrasing, or rewording. Even though they are often used interchangeably, the terms can mean slightly different things:

Paraphrasing   is restating someone else’s ideas or words in your own words while retaining their meaning. Paraphrasing changes sentence structure, word choice, and sentence length to convey the same meaning.

Rephrasing   may involve more substantial changes to the original text, including changing the order of sentences or the overall structure of the text.

Rewording   is changing individual words in a text without changing its meaning or structure, often using synonyms.

It can. One of the two methods of paraphrasing is called “Fluency.” This will improve the language and fix grammatical errors in the text you’re paraphrasing.

Paraphrasing and using a paraphrasing tool aren’t cheating. It’s a great tool for saving time and coming up with new ways to express yourself in writing.  However, always be sure to credit your sources.  Avoid plagiarism.  

If you don’t properly reference text paraphrased from another source, you’re plagiarising. If you use someone else’s text and paraphrase it, you need to credit the original source. You can do that by using citations. There are different styles, like APA, MLA, Harvard, and Chicago. Find more information about referencing sources  here.

Paraphrasing   without crediting the original author   is a   form of plagiarism , because you’re presenting someone else’s ideas as if they were your own.

However, paraphrasing is not plagiarism if you correctly referencing the source . This means including an   in-text citation   and a full reference, formatted according to your required   citation style.

As well as citing, make sure that any paraphrased text is completely rewritten in your own words.

Plagiarism   means using someone else’s words or ideas and passing them off as your own.   Paraphrasing   means putting someone else’s ideas in your own words.

So when does paraphrasing count as plagiarism?

• Paraphrasing   is   plagiarism if you don’t properly credit the original author.
• Paraphrasing   is   plagiarism if your text is too close to the original wording (even if you cite the source). If you directly copy a sentence or phrase, you should   quote   it instead.
• Paraphrasing  is not   plagiarism if you put the author’s ideas completely in your own words   and   properly referencing the source .

Quoting and Paraphrasing

Download this Handout PDF

College writing often involves integrating information from published sources into your own writing in order to add credibility and authority–this process is essential to research and the production of new knowledge.

However, when building on the work of others, you need to be careful not to plagiarize : “to steal and pass off (the ideas and words of another) as one’s own” or to “present as new and original an idea or product derived from an existing source.”1 The University of Wisconsin–Madison takes this act of “intellectual burglary” very seriously and considers it to be a breach of academic integrity . Penalties are severe.

These materials will help you avoid plagiarism by teaching you how to properly integrate information from published sources into your own writing.

1. Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, 10th ed. (Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster, 1993), 888.

How to avoid plagiarism

When using sources in your papers, you can avoid plagiarism by knowing what must be documented.

Specific words and phrases

If you use an author’s specific word or words, you must place those words within quotation marks and you must credit the source.

Information and Ideas

Even if you use your own words, if you obtained the information or ideas you are presenting from a source, you must document the source.

Information : If a piece of information isn’t common knowledge (see below), you need to provide a source.

Ideas : An author’s ideas may include not only points made and conclusions drawn, but, for instance, a specific method or theory, the arrangement of material, or a list of steps in a process or characteristics of a medical condition. If a source provided any of these, you need to acknowledge the source.

Common Knowledge?

You do not need to cite a source for material considered common knowledge:

General common knowledge is factual information considered to be in the public domain, such as birth and death dates of well-known figures, and generally accepted dates of military, political, literary, and other historical events. In general, factual information contained in multiple standard reference works can usually be considered to be in the public domain.

Field-specific common knowledge is “common” only within a particular field or specialty. It may include facts, theories, or methods that are familiar to readers within that discipline. For instance, you may not need to cite a reference to Piaget’s developmental stages in a paper for an education class or give a source for your description of a commonly used method in a biology report—but you must be sure that this information is so widely known within that field that it will be shared by your readers.

If in doubt, be cautious and cite the source. And in the case of both general and field-specific common knowledge, if you use the exact words of the reference source, you must use quotation marks and credit the source.

Paraphrasing vs. Quoting — Explanation

Should i paraphrase or quote.

In general, use direct quotations only if you have a good reason. Most of your paper should be in your own words. Also, it’s often conventional to quote more extensively from sources when you’re writing a humanities paper, and to summarize from sources when you’re writing in the social or natural sciences–but there are always exceptions.

In a literary analysis paper , for example, you”ll want to quote from the literary text rather than summarize, because part of your task in this kind of paper is to analyze the specific words and phrases an author uses.

In research papers , you should quote from a source

• to show that an authority supports your point
• to present a position or argument to critique or comment on
• to include especially moving or historically significant language
• to present a particularly well-stated passage whose meaning would be lost or changed if paraphrased or summarized

You should summarize or paraphrase when

• what you want from the source is the idea expressed, and not the specific language used to express it
• you can express in fewer words what the key point of a source is

How to paraphrase a source

General advice.

• When reading a passage, try first to understand it as a whole, rather than pausing to write down specific ideas or phrases.
• Be selective. Unless your assignment is to do a formal or “literal” paraphrase, you usually don?t need to paraphrase an entire passage; instead, choose and summarize the material that helps you make a point in your paper.
• Think of what “your own words” would be if you were telling someone who’s unfamiliar with your subject (your mother, your brother, a friend) what the original source said.
• Remember that you can use direct quotations of phrases from the original within your paraphrase, and that you don’t need to change or put quotation marks around shared language.

Methods of Paraphrasing

• Look away from the source then write. Read the text you want to paraphrase several times until you feel that you understand it and can use your own words to restate it to someone else. Then, look away from the original and rewrite the text in your own words.
• Take notes. Take abbreviated notes; set the notes aside; then paraphrase from the notes a day or so later, or when you draft.

If you find that you can’t do A or B, this may mean that you don’t understand the passage completely or that you need to use a more structured process until you have more experience in paraphrasing.

The method below is not only a way to create a paraphrase but also a way to understand a difficult text.

Paraphrasing difficult texts

Consider the following passage from Love and Toil (a book on motherhood in London from 1870 to 1918), in which the author, Ellen Ross, puts forth one of her major arguments:

• Love and Toil maintains that family survival was the mother’s main charge among the large majority of London?s population who were poor or working class; the emotional and intellectual nurture of her child or children and even their actual comfort were forced into the background. To mother was to work for and organize household subsistence. (p. 9)

Children of the poor at the turn of the century received little if any emotional or intellectual nurturing from their mothers, whose main charge was family survival. Working for and organizing household subsistence were what defined mothering. Next to this, even the children’s basic comfort was forced into the background (Ross, 1995).

According to Ross (1993), poor children at the turn of the century received little mothering in our sense of the term. Mothering was defined by economic status, and among the poor, a mother’s foremost responsibility was not to stimulate her children’s minds or foster their emotional growth but to provide food and shelter to meet the basic requirements for physical survival. Given the magnitude of this task, children were deprived of even the “actual comfort” (p. 9) we expect mothers to provide today.

You may need to go through this process several times to create a satisfactory paraphrase.

Successful vs. unsuccessful paraphrases

Paraphrasing is often defined as putting a passage from an author into “your own words.” But what are your own words? How different must your paraphrase be from the original?

The paragraphs below provide an example by showing a passage as it appears in the source, two paraphrases that follow the source too closely, and a legitimate paraphrase.

The student’s intention was to incorporate the material in the original passage into a section of a paper on the concept of “experts” that compared the functions of experts and nonexperts in several professions.

The Passage as It Appears in the Source

Critical care nurses function in a hierarchy of roles. In this open heart surgery unit, the nurse manager hires and fires the nursing personnel. The nurse manager does not directly care for patients but follows the progress of unusual or long-term patients. On each shift a nurse assumes the role of resource nurse. This person oversees the hour-by-hour functioning of the unit as a whole, such as considering expected admissions and discharges of patients, ascertaining that beds are available for patients in the operating room, and covering sick calls. Resource nurses also take a patient assignment. They are the most experienced of all the staff nurses. The nurse clinician has a separate job description and provides for quality of care by orienting new staff, developing unit policies, and providing direct support where needed, such as assisting in emergency situations. The clinical nurse specialist in this unit is mostly involved with formal teaching in orienting new staff. The nurse manager, nurse clinician, and clinical nurse specialist are the designated experts. They do not take patient assignments. The resource nurse is seen as both a caregiver and a resource to other caregivers. . . . Staff nurses have a hierarchy of seniority. . . . Staff nurses are assigned to patients to provide all their nursing care. (Chase, 1995, p. 156)

Word-for-Word Plagiarism

Critical care nurses have a hierarchy of roles. The nurse manager hires and fires nurses. S/he does not directly care for patients but does follow unusual or long-term cases. On each shift a resource nurse attends to the functioning of the unit as a whole, such as making sure beds are available in the operating room , and also has a patient assignment . The nurse clinician orients new staff, develops policies, and provides support where needed . The clinical nurse specialist also orients new staff, mostly by formal teaching. The nurse manager, nurse clinician, and clinical nurse specialist , as the designated experts, do not take patient assignments . The resource nurse is not only a caregiver but a resource to the other caregivers . Within the staff nurses there is also a hierarchy of seniority . Their job is to give assigned patients all their nursing care .

Why this is plagiarism

Notice that the writer has not only “borrowed” Chase’s material (the results of her research) with no acknowledgment, but has also largely maintained the author’s method of expression and sentence structure. The phrases in red are directly copied from the source or changed only slightly in form.

Even if the student-writer had acknowledged Chase as the source of the content, the language of the passage would be considered plagiarized because no quotation marks indicate the phrases that come directly from Chase. And if quotation marks did appear around all these phrases, this paragraph would be so cluttered that it would be unreadable.

A Patchwork Paraphrase

Chase (1995) describes how nurses in a critical care unit function in a hierarchy that places designated experts at the top and the least senior staff nurses at the bottom. The experts — the nurse manager, nurse clinician, and clinical nurse specialist — are not involved directly in patient care. The staff nurses, in contrast, are assigned to patients and provide all their nursing care . Within the staff nurses is a hierarchy of seniority in which the most senior can become resource nurses: they are assigned a patient but also serve as a resource to other caregivers. The experts have administrative and teaching tasks such as selecting and orienting new staff, developing unit policies , and giving hands-on support where needed.

This paraphrase is a patchwork composed of pieces in the original author’s language (in red) and pieces in the student-writer’s words, all rearranged into a new pattern, but with none of the borrowed pieces in quotation marks. Thus, even though the writer acknowledges the source of the material, the underlined phrases are falsely presented as the student’s own.

A Legitimate Paraphrase

In her study of the roles of nurses in a critical care unit, Chase (1995) also found a hierarchy that distinguished the roles of experts and others. Just as the educational experts described above do not directly teach students, the experts in this unit do not directly attend to patients. That is the role of the staff nurses, who, like teachers, have their own “hierarchy of seniority” (p. 156). The roles of the experts include employing unit nurses and overseeing the care of special patients (nurse manager), teaching and otherwise integrating new personnel into the unit (clinical nurse specialist and nurse clinician), and policy-making (nurse clinician). In an intermediate position in the hierarchy is the resource nurse, a staff nurse with more experience than the others, who assumes direct care of patients as the other staff nurses do, but also takes on tasks to ensure the smooth operation of the entire facility.

Why this is a good paraphrase

The writer has documented Chase’s material and specific language (by direct reference to the author and by quotation marks around language taken directly from the source). Notice too that the writer has modified Chase’s language and structure and has added material to fit the new context and purpose — to present the distinctive functions of experts and nonexperts in several professions.

Shared Language

Perhaps you’ve noticed that a number of phrases from the original passage appear in the legitimate paraphrase: critical care, staff nurses, nurse manager, clinical nurse specialist, nurse clinician, resource nurse.

If all these phrases were in red, the paraphrase would look much like the “patchwork” example. The difference is that the phrases in the legitimate paraphrase are all precise, economical, and conventional designations that are part of the shared language within the nursing discipline (in the too-close paraphrases, they’re red only when used within a longer borrowed phrase).

In every discipline and in certain genres (such as the empirical research report), some phrases are so specialized or conventional that you can’t paraphrase them except by wordy and awkward circumlocutions that would be less familiar (and thus less readable) to the audience.

When you repeat such phrases, you’re not stealing the unique phrasing of an individual writer but using a common vocabulary shared by a community of scholars.

Some Examples of Shared Language You Don’t Need to Put in Quotation Marks

• Conventional designations: e.g., physician’s assistant, chronic low-back pain
• Preferred bias-free language: e.g., persons with disabilities
• Technical terms and phrases of a discipline or genre : e.g., reduplication, cognitive domain, material culture, sexual harassment

Chase, S. K. (1995). The social context of critical care clinical judgment. Heart and Lung, 24, 154-162.

How to Quote a Source

Introducing a quotation.

One of your jobs as a writer is to guide your reader through your text. Don’t simply drop quotations into your paper and leave it to the reader to make connections.

Integrating a quotation into your text usually involves two elements:

• A signal that a quotation is coming–generally the author’s name and/or a reference to the work
• An assertion that indicates the relationship of the quotation to your text

Often both the signal and the assertion appear in a single introductory statement, as in the example below. Notice how a transitional phrase also serves to connect the quotation smoothly to the introductory statement.

Ross (1993), in her study of poor and working-class mothers in London from 1870-1918 [signal], makes it clear that economic status to a large extent determined the meaning of motherhood [assertion]. Among this population [connection], “To mother was to work for and organize household subsistence” (p. 9).

The signal can also come after the assertion, again with a connecting word or phrase:

Illness was rarely a routine matter in the nineteenth century [assertion]. As [connection] Ross observes [signal], “Maternal thinking about children’s health revolved around the possibility of a child’s maiming or death” (p. 166).

Formatting Quotations

Short direct prose.

Incorporate short direct prose quotations into the text of your paper and enclose them in double quotation marks:

According to Jonathan Clarke, “Professional diplomats often say that trying to think diplomatically about foreign policy is a waste of time.”

Longer prose quotations

Begin longer quotations (for instance, in the APA system, 40 words or more) on a new line and indent the entire quotation (i.e., put in block form), with no quotation marks at beginning or end, as in the quoted passage from our Successful vs. Unsucessful Paraphrases page.

Rules about the minimum length of block quotations, how many spaces to indent, and whether to single- or double-space extended quotations vary with different documentation systems; check the guidelines for the system you’re using.

Quotation of Up to 3 Lines of Poetry

Quotations of up to 3 lines of poetry should be integrated into your sentence. For example:

In Julius Caesar, Antony begins his famous speech with “Friends, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your ears; / I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him” (III.ii.75-76).

Notice that a slash (/) with a space on either side is used to separate lines.

Quotation of More than 3 Lines of Poetry

More than 3 lines of poetry should be indented. As with any extended (indented) quotation, do not use quotation marks unless you need to indicate a quotation within your quotation.

Punctuating with Quotation Marks

Parenthetical citations.

With short quotations, place citations outside of closing quotation marks, followed by sentence punctuation (period, question mark, comma, semi-colon, colon):

Menand (2002) characterizes language as “a social weapon” (p. 115).

With block quotations, check the guidelines for the documentation system you are using.

Commas and periods

Place inside closing quotation marks when no parenthetical citation follows:

Hertzberg (2002) notes that “treating the Constitution as imperfect is not new,” but because of Dahl’s credentials, his “apostasy merits attention” (p. 85).

Semicolons and colons

Place outside of closing quotation marks (or after a parenthetical citation).

Question marks and exclamation points

Place inside closing quotation marks if the quotation is a question/exclamation:

Menand (2001) acknowledges that H. W. Fowler’s Modern English Usage is “a classic of the language,” but he asks, “Is it a dead classic?” (p. 114).

[Note that a period still follows the closing parenthesis.]

Place outside of closing quotation marks if the entire sentence containing the quotation is a question or exclamation:

How many students actually read the guide to find out what is meant by “academic misconduct”?

Quotation within a quotation

Use single quotation marks for the embedded quotation:

According to Hertzberg (2002), Dahl gives the U. S. Constitution “bad marks in ‘democratic fairness’ and ‘encouraging consensus'” (p. 90).

[The phrases “democratic fairness” and “encouraging consensus” are already in quotation marks in Dahl’s sentence.]

Indicating Changes in Quotations

Quoting only a portion of the whole.

Use ellipsis points (. . .) to indicate an omission within a quotation–but not at the beginning or end unless it’s not obvious that you’re quoting only a portion of the whole.

Adding Clarification, Comment, or Correction

Within quotations, use square brackets [ ] (not parentheses) to add your own clarification, comment, or correction.

Use [sic] (meaning “so” or “thus”) to indicate that a mistake is in the source you’re quoting and is not your own.

Additional information

Information on summarizing and paraphrasing sources.

American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (4th ed.). (2000). Retrieved January 7, 2002, from http://www.bartleby.com/61/ Bazerman, C. (1995). The informed writer: Using sources in the disciplines (5th ed). Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Leki, I. (1995). Academic writing: Exploring processes and strategies (2nd ed.) New York: St. Martin?s Press, pp. 185-211.

Leki describes the basic method presented in C, pp. 4-5.

Spatt, B. (1999). Writing from sources (5th ed.) New York: St. Martin?s Press, pp. 98-119; 364-371.

Information about specific documentation systems

The Writing Center has handouts explaining how to use many of the standard documentation systems. You may look at our general Web page on Documentation Systems, or you may check out any of the following specific Web pages.

If you’re not sure which documentation system to use, ask the course instructor who assigned your paper.

• American Psychological Assoicaion (APA)
• Modern Language Association (MLA)
• Chicago/Turabian (A Footnote or Endnote System)
• American Political Science Association (APSA)
• Council of Science Editors (CBE)
• Numbered References

You may also consult the following guides:

• American Medical Association, Manual for Authors and Editors
• Council of Science Editors, CBE style Manual
• The Chicago Manual of Style
• MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers
• Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association

Academic and Professional Writing

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Reading Poetry

A Short Guide to Close Reading for Literary Analysis

Using Literary Quotations

Play Reviews

Writing a Rhetorical Précis to Analyze Nonfiction Texts

Incorporating Interview Data

Grant Proposals

Planning and Writing a Grant Proposal: The Basics

Additional Resources for Grants and Proposal Writing

Job Materials and Application Essays

Writing Personal Statements for Ph.D. Programs

• Before you begin: useful tips for writing your essay
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• Frequently Asked Questions

Resume Writing Tips

CV Writing Tips

Cover Letters

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Proposals and Dissertations

Resources for Proposal Writers

Resources for Dissertators

Research Papers

Planning and Writing Research Papers

Writing Annotated Bibliographies

Creating Poster Presentations

Writing an Abstract for Your Research Paper

Thank-You Notes

Advice for Students Writing Thank-You Notes to Donors

Reading for a Review

Critical Reviews

Writing a Review of Literature

Scientific Reports

Scientific Report Format

Sample Lab Assignment

Writing for the Web

Writing an Effective Blog Post

Writing for Social Media: A Guide for Academics

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