A Few Notes About Quotations

• Remember: A quotation is when you write down the exact words written or spoken by someone else. 

• Quotations do not have to be from the dialogue of a story.  A quotation includes any groups of words copied directly from a source.

• Use quotation marks around any groups of words copied from a source to let the reader know that these are not your words, they belong to someone else.

• Generally, you should try to keep your quotations to the shortest possible length while still retaining the information you thought was important enough to quote. 

Click to learn how to shorten a quotation, how to edit a quotation, how to divide a quotation, how to deal with a long quotation (longer than 2 lines), or how to punctuate a quotation.