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How to Cite an Article in an Essay? (APA and MLA)

Before we get to all the different cases that change the way to cite an article in your essay, we must clarify a couple of things first.

• There are more than two citation styles out there. But, we will cover only APA and MLA because these are the most common ones.
• This article covers in-text citations, so it won’t go over the references page and how you should organize your sources there.

Note: For references, you can try our free online tools that support many styles — Citation Generators.

Usually, your assignment sheet instructions say what style you must stick to. If it doesn’t, ask your tutor for help.

MLA In-Text Citations (Modern Language Association)

Indicating your citations in the essay’s body is meant to be as short and as readable as possible. It’s quite different from the references pages where you indicate tons of details about the source. Your in-text citation is a link to the works cited page at the end of your paper.

There are two ways of using a quote in an essay MLA. The in-text method requires only the page number of the source used in parentheses at the end of the quote. The parenthetical one requires you to include both the author’s last name and the page number.

Using a Direct Quote

The author’s words are left unchanged and enclosed within quotation marks. Examples:

Use the author’s last name before the quote.

Smith states, “Citing an article in your essay correctly is fundamental if you want to avoid plagiarism” (26).

Don’t use the author’s last name before the quote.

The report states, “There are two ways of in-text citation” (Smith 26).

Use a lengthy excerpt (block quote) without quotation marks but with left indentation (half an inch). Moreover, note that you will have to place a period before the parentheses. A quote is regarded as long if it takes four or more lines in your essay.

Smith elaborates further: All the citation rules might seem too complicated, especially if you haven’t dealt with them before. One of the reasons for that could be the fact that students neglect to buy a corresponding style manual or to consult with their tutor. (26)

Note: If you refer to a web source or an article with no pagination, don’t mention the page number at all.

Paraphrasing or summarizing

When paraphrasing the source , you don’t have to use quotation marks:

According to Smith, you must learn how to cite a source in your essay not to plagiarize (26).

Sometimes, you might choose to paraphrase individual quotes from multiple pages. In such a case, you can indicate the pages or a page range separated by a comma like this: (Smith 26, 28, 31-33).

My source has more than one author

Case 1: two authors.

Just use “and” to separate them. For instance:

Moisson and Zakher have found that “Having a 20-minute nap during the day improves information retention by 500%” (127).

“Napping three times a week lowers the risk of dying of heart disease by 37%” (Moisson and Zakher 127).

Case 2: More than two authors

Mention the last name of the first author followed by “et al.” (which means “and others”). For example:

“Daytime napping brings many advantages” (Moisson et al. 127).

The author is unknown

The author’s name might be unknown. If it’s the case, use the first several words from the article’s title but omit “A,” “An,” or “The” at the beginning. It can be written in quotes or italics, depending on how it’s written in your list of references. The number of words you pick to use depends on the title. You want as many as to make it clear for the reader what source the quote is from. For example:

( Astrophysics 221) or (“Global Warming” 310)

What if I have two authors with the same surname?

To avoid confusion, use the author’s initials or their full names (if the initials are also identical) like this:

Some researchers claim that North America’s global warming early signs were enough to start taking measures (H. Black 22), others refuse to even acknowledge global warming as a planet-scale issue (T. Black 35).

MLA citation examples with references

Take a look at some more examples of MLA in-text citations with their respective reference entries.

Newspaper article

On October 1, 2019, Hanoi (Vietnam) became the leader in the list of cities with the highest levels of air pollution. (Smith 3)

Works Cited page

3. Smith, Thomas. “Hanoi Wrapped in Clouds.”  The Morning Sun  [Houston, TX] 1 Oct. 2019, p. 7.

Scholarly article

Features of the child’s interaction with their relatives, the degree of relatives’ responsiveness to the signals received from the child, and the completeness of satisfying their needs in many aspects determine the nature of relations with people formed from the first years of life. (Spencer 5)

5. Spencer, Laura. “Aggressive behavior in adolescents and the identity of the parents.”  Psychological Science and Education , vol. 50, no. 5, 2018, p. 14.

Magazine article

To restore the movement of qi energy, the doctor acts on certain acupuncture points — areas where the meridians come closest to the surface of the body. (Turnbull 5)

5. Turnbull, Katarina. “The Best Procedures for Your Vitality.”  The Health,  19 May. 2018, p. 70.

Journal article

The construction of the Okayama castle complex was completed in 1615, and the castle served as a residence for local daimyo (feudal lords) throughout the entire Edo period (XVII-XIX century).  (Gilliam 2)

1. Gilliam, Szymon. “Cities with Historic Gardens.”  Big in Japan,  3 Apr. 2019, p. 24.

Research article

Research on social networks in higher education institutions usually focuses on one of the two main groups of participants — teachers or students. (Kent 8)

8. Kent, Oscar. ” Social Networks of Students: Factors of Formation and Influence On Education.”  Education Today, vol.11, no. 2, 2018, p.31 .

APA In-Text Citations (American Psychological Association)

This style is the most commonly adopted one in the fields of health and social sciences. Remember to include all the articles you used in the references at the end of your essay .

To cite in an essay, using APA style, you will need to include the author’s name, the date of publication, and the page number where you found the information.

If compared to MLA, APA style is a bit more complicated and requires the writer to specify more details. Apart from the author’s last name and the page number, you’d also need to include the year of publication.

Smith states (2005), “Citing an article in your essay properly is essential to avoid plagiarism” (p. 26).

The manual states, “There are two ways of in-text citation” (Smith, 2005, p. 26).

In APA, a quote is recognized as long if it’s over 40 words. You don’t need to use quotation marks, and the indentation here is five spaces from the left margin. Example:

Smith (2005) elaborates on this issue: All the citation rules might be very confusing, especially if you haven’t dealt with them before. One of the reasons for that could be the fact that students neglect to buy a corresponding style manual or to consult with their tutor. (p. 26)

There are two ways you can format paraphrasing:

According to Smith (2005), you must be aware of citation rules to avoid plagiarism in your essay.

You must learn how to cite properly in your paper to avoid plagiarism-related issues (Smith, 2005, p. 26).

Use “and” to separate them in text and use an ampersand (&) to separate them in parentheses. For instance:

The result of research by Crompton and Gibson (2009) suggests that… (Crompton & Gibson, 2009, p. 55).

Case 2: 3–5 authors

Mention all authors the first time you cite them. For all other instances, write only the last name of the first author and add “et al.”

(Foster, Peattie, Rajagopalan, Frankfeldt, 2001) (Foster et al., 2001)

Case 3: 6+ authors

Use the first author’s name with “et al.” after it.

Hanks et al. (2008) suggest that… (Hanks et al., 2008, p. 43)

If the author’s name is unknown, use the first word or words of the source’s title. Titles of reports and books must be written in italics or underlined, whereas article titles and chapters should be put inside quotation marks.

Similar results were received after all students learned more about citing sources in essays (“Citation Guide,” 2016).

APA citation examples with references

Check more examples of in-text citations in APA style with their corresponding references.

Earlier, journalists reported on the British Prime Minister’s plan to establish centers for customs clearance of goods across the border between Ireland and Northern Ireland, and to leave the duty-free regime for food and agricultural products. (Morton, 2019)

Morton, M. (2019, October 11). New Brexit Agreement Proposals. The Day.

This position is quite common in the context of human study; it constitutes the ideology of most modern psychological assistance services and underlies the technology and many methods of psychotherapeutic and psychocorrectional work. (Watt, 2019)

Watt, A. (2019). Three Paradigms in Psychology – Three Strategies for Psychological Impact. The Art of Psychology, 9 (7), 24.

16-year-old Greta insists that, according to the 2015 Paris Agreement, the governments of the 195 countries that have signed this document are obliged to reduce carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere immediately. (Iles, 2019)

Iles, V. (2019, September 30). Greta Tunberg’s Stolen Childhood. Generation Today, 127 (234), 17. https://doi.org/10.1416/generation.aay3410

The most accepted ways in which graduates respond to the conflicts are “Competition” (27%) and “Cooperation” (24%). (Reide, 2019)

Reide, B. (2019). Psychological Features of Communication and Response in Conflict Situations In The Professional Education System. Interscience, 12(5), 36.

It is surprising that 78% of respondents neglect sleep and stay up late on the Internet, forget about eating, personal hygiene, household duties, study, etc. (Benjamin, 2018)

Benjamin, P. (2018). Internet Addiction in Teenagers. Cyber Community, 7 (6), 41. https://doi.org/10.1037/ppm00002415

You will find a lot more rules related to the citation style you’re using because there are many types of sources and exceptions to those sources. So, by acquiring a fresh style manual, you’ll be on the safe side when it comes to citing and paraphrasing in your essay.

The list of references

• Research and Citation — The Purdue University Online Writing Lab
• Citation Guide (MLA and APA) — Lane Community College
• MLA Citation Guide (8th Edition): In-Text Citation — Columbia College

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In-text citations are inserted in the body of your research paper to briefly document the source of your information. 

• In-text citations in MLA style follow the general format of author's last name followed by a page number enclosed in parentheses. Here is an example: "Here's a direct quote" (Smith 8).
• If the author's name is not given, use the first word (or words) of the title. Follow the same formatting that is used in the works-cited list, such as quotation marks. Here is an example: This is a paraphrase ("Trouble" 22).
• If the source does not have page numbers (for example, some online articles, websites and e-books), only include the author's name for the in-text citation. Do not estimate or make up page numbers.  
• In-text citations point the reader to the works-cited list, which is located at the end of your paper, for more complete bibliographic information.

Repeated Use of Sources

If you use information from a single source more than once in succession (i.e., no other sources referred to in between), you can use a simplified in-text citation. Here is an example:

Cell biology is an area of science that focuses on the structure and function of cells (Smith 15). It revolves around the idea that the cell is a "fundamental unit of life" (17).

  Note: If using this simplified in-text citation creates ambiguity regarding the source being referred to, use the full in-text citation format.

In-Text Citation Formatting and Examples

Format:  (Author's Last Name Page Number)

Example: (Hunt 358)

Two Authors

Format:  (Author's Last Name and Author's Last Name Page Number)

Example: (Case and Daristotle 57)

Three or More Authors

Format:   (Author's Last Name et al. Page Number)

Example: (Case et al. 57)

Unknown Author

Where you would normally put the author's last name, instead use the first one, two, or three words from the title. Do not use  initial articles such as "A", "An" or "The". Provide enough words to clarify which sources from your works-cited list that you are referencing. 

Follow the formatting of the title. For example, if the title in the works-cited list is in italics, italicize the words from the title in the in-text citation, and if the title in the works-cited list is in quotation marks, put quotation marks around the words from the title in the in-text citation.

Format: (Title Page Number)

Examples : 

( Cell Biology 12)

("Nursing" 12)

Multiple Sources

To cite more than one source when you are paraphrasing, separate the in-text citations with a semi-colon.

Format: (Author's Last Name Page Number; Author's Last Name Page Number).

(Smith 42; Bennett 71). 

( It Takes Two ; Brock 43).

 Note: In MLA style, the sources within the in-text citation do not need to be in alphabetical order.

Works Quoted in Another Source

Sometimes an author of a book, article or website will mention another person's work by using a quotation or paraphrased idea from that source. (This may be a secondary source.) For example, the Kirkey article you are reading includes a quotation by Smith that you would like to include in your essay. The basic rule is that in both your Works-Cited List and in-text citation you will still cite Kirkey. Kirkey will appear in your Works Cited list – NOT Smith. Add the words "qtd. in" to your in-text citation.

Examples of in-text citations:

According to a study by Smith (qtd. in Kirkey) 42% of doctors would refuse to perform legal euthanasia.

Smith (qtd. in Kirkey) states that “even if euthanasia was legal, 42% of doctors would be against this method of assisted dying” (A.10).

Example of Works Cited List citation:

Kirkey, Susan. "Euthanasia."   The Montreal Gazette , 9 Feb. 2013, p. A.10. Canadian Newsstand Major Dailies.

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On This Page

• About In-text Citations

Paraphrasing

• In-Text Citation for One, Two, or More Authors/Editors

Unknown Author

Repeated use of sources, long quotations.

• In-Text Citation for More Than One Source

Citing a Source that you Found in Another Source (Secondary Source)

Order of authors, physician credentials, about in-text citations.

In MLA, in-text citations are inserted in the body of your research paper to briefly document the source of your information. Brief in-text citations point the reader to the full citation on the works cited list at the end of the paper.

Create in-text citations for the following:

• Direct quotes

If you're using information from a single source more than once in succession (i.e., no other sources referred to in between), you can use a simplified in-text citation.

Cell biology is an area of science that focuses on the structure and function of cells (Smith 15). It revolves around the idea that the cell is a "fundamental unit of life" (17). Many important scientists have contributed to the evolution of cell biology. Mattias Jakob Schleiden and Theodor Schwann, for example, were scientists who formulated cell theory in 1838 (20). 

 Note: If using this simplified in-text citation creates ambiguity regarding the source being referred to, use the full in-text citation format.

What Is a Long Quotation?

If your quotation extends to more than four lines as you're typing your essay, it is a long quotation.

Rules for Long Quotations

There are 4 rules that apply to long quotations that are different from regular quotations:

• The line before your long quotation, when you're introducing the quote, usually ends with a colon.
• The long quotation is indented half an inch from the rest of the text, so it looks like a block of text.
• There are no quotation marks around the quotation.
• The period at the end of the quotation comes  before  your in-text citation as opposed to  after , as it does with regular quotations.

Example of a Long Quotation

At the end of  Lord of the Flies  the boys are struck with the realization of their behaviour:

The tears began to flow and sobs shook him. He gave himself up to them now for the first time on the island; great, shuddering spasms of grief that seemed to wrench his whole body. His voice rose under the black smoke before the burning wreckage of the island; and infected by that emotion, the other little boys began to shake and sob too . (Golding 186)

Direct Quote  - Add an in-text citation at the end of the quote with the author name and page number:

Mother-infant attachment has been a leading topic of developmental research since John Bowlby found that "children raised in institutions were deficient in emotional and personality development" (Hunt 358).

Authors Name in the Sentence & with a Direct Quote -  If you refer to the author's name in a sentence you do not have to include the name in the in-text citation, instead include the page number (if there is one) at the end of the quotation or paraphrased section. For example:

Hunt explains that mother-infant attachment has been a leading topic of developmental research since John Bowlby found that "children raised in institutions were deficient in emotional and personality development" (358).

No Page Numbers & with a Direct Quote -  When you quote from electronic sources that do not provide page numbers (like Web pages), cite the author name only.

"Three phases of the separation response: protest, despair, and detachment" (Garelli).

  Note: The period goes outside the brackets, at the end of your in-text citation.

In-Text Citation For One, Two, or More Authors/Editors

Author Known: 

• "Here's a direct quote" (Smith 8).

In-Text Citation For More Than One Source

If you would like to cite more than one source within the same in-text citation, simply record the in-text citations as normal and separate them with a semi-colon.

(Smith 42; Bennett 71). 

( It Takes Two ; Brock 43).

 Note: The sources within the in-text citation do not need to be in alphabetical order for MLA style.

When creating an in-text citation or full citation, the authors should be listed in the original order displayed on the item (book, article, ...). 

Do not include academic credentials (e.g., MD, MPH, PhD,. DDS) when citing doctors in the in-text or full citation. 

The writer may refer to the physician by Dr. (name), when writing a paraphrase or inserting a direct quotation, although, it is not required.

Using the medical credential in the sentence:

Dr. Higgins, said the reason behind the complication was "direct quote here" (257). 

Dr. Price realized that nutrition was tied to health outcomes and encountered this observation in various regions of the world during his travels (390). 

Omitting the medical credential from the sentence:

He sad the reason behind the complication was "direct quote here" (Higgins 257). 

Price observed that nutrition was tied to health outcomes and encountered this in various regions of the world during his travels (390). 

When you write information or ideas from a source in your own words, cite the source by adding an in-text citation at the end of the paraphrased portion.

Paraphrasing from One Page

Include a full in-text citation with the author name and page number (if there is one). For example:

Mother-infant attachment became a leading topic of developmental research following the publication of John Bowlby's studies (Hunt 65).

Hunt discussed mother-infant attachment becoming a leading topic of developmental research following the publication of John Bowlby's studies (65).

Paraphrasing from Multiple Pages

If the paraphrased information/idea is from several pages, include them. For example:

Mother-infant attachment became a leading topic of developmental research following the publication of John Bowlby's studies (Hunt 50, 55, 65-71).

Author Unknown:

• If the author's name is not given, then use the first word or words of the title. Follow the same formatting that was used in the works cited list, such as quotation marks. This is a paraphrase ("Trouble" 22).
• Where you'd normally put the author's last name, instead use the first one, two, or three words from the title. Don't count initial articles like "A", "An" or "The". You should provide enough words to make it clear which work you're referring to from your Works Cited list.
• If the title in the Works Cited list is in italics, italicize the words from the title in the in-text citation.
• If the title in the Works Cited list is in quotation marks, put quotation marks around the words from the title in the in-text citation.

( Cell Biology  12)

("Nursing" 12)

Sometimes an author of a book, article or website will mention another person’s work by using a quotation or paraphrased idea from that source. ( This may be called a secondary source.) 

For example, the Kirkey article you are reading includes a quotation by Smith that you would like to include in your essay.

• The basic rule: in your Works Cited and in-text citation you will still cite  Kirkey NOT Smith.
• A dd the words “qtd. in” to your in-text citation.  

Examples of in-text citations :

According to a study by Smith (qtd. in Kirkey) 42% of doctors would refuse to perform legal euthanasia.

Smith (qtd. in Kirkey) states that “even if euthanasia was legal, 42% of doctors would be against this method of assisted dying” (A.10).

Example of Works Cited list citation:

Kirkey, Susan. "Euthanasia."  The Montreal Gazette , 9 Feb. 2013, p. A.10.  Canadian Newsstand Major Dailies.

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A direct quotation reproduces words verbatim from another work or from your own previously published work. It is best to paraphrase sources rather than directly quoting them because paraphrasing allows you to fit material to the context of your paper and writing style.

Use direct quotations rather than paraphrasing:

• when reproducing an exact definition (see Section 6.22 of the Publication Manual ),
• when an author has said something memorably or succinctly, or
• when you want to respond to exact wording (e.g., something someone said).

Instructors, programs, editors, and publishers may establish limits on the use of direct quotations. Consult your instructor or editor if you are concerned that you may have too much quoted material in your paper.

This page addresses how to format short quotations and block quotations. Additional information is available about how to:

• include page numbers for quotations
• cite quotations from material without page numbers
• cite quotations that include errors
• indicate changes to quotations
• present quotations from research participants

Quotations are covered in the seventh edition APA Style manuals in the Publication Manual Sections 8.25 to 8.35 and the Concise Guide Sections 8.25 to 8.34

Related handout

• In-Text Citation Checklist (PDF, 227KB)

Short quotations (fewer than 40 words)

For quotations of fewer than 40 words, add quotation marks around the words and incorporate the quote into your own text—there is no additional formatting needed. Do not insert an ellipsis at the beginning and/or end of a quotation unless the original source includes an ellipsis.

Effective teams can be difficult to describe because “high performance along one domain does not translate to high performance along another” (Ervin et al., 2018, p. 470).

For a direct quotation, always include a full citation ( parenthetical or narrative ) in the same sentence as the quotation, including the page number (or other location information, e.g., paragraph number).

• Place a parenthetical citation either immediately after the quotation or at the end of the sentence.
• For a narrative citation, include the author and year in the sentence and then place the page number or other location information in parentheses after the quotation.
• If the quotation precedes the narrative citation, put the page number or location information after the year and a comma.
• If the citation appears at the end of a sentence, put the end punctuation after the closing parenthesis for the citation.
• If the quotation includes citations, see Section 8.32 of the Publication Manual .
• If the quotation includes material already in quotation marks, see Section 8.33 of the Publication Manual .
• Place periods and commas within closing single or double quotation marks. Place other punctuation marks inside quotation marks only when they are part of the quoted material.

Block quotations (40 words or more)

Format quotations of 40 words or more as block quotations:

• Do not use quotation marks to enclose a block quotation.
• Start a block quotation on a new line and indent the whole block 0.5 in. from the left margin.
• Double-space the entire block quotation.
• Do not add extra space before or after it.
• If there are additional paragraphs within the quotation, indent the first line of each subsequent paragraph an additional 0.5 in. See an example in Section 8.27 of the Publication Manual .
• Either (a) cite the source in parentheses after the quotation’s final punctuation or (b) cite the author and year in the narrative before the quotation and place only the page number in parentheses after the quotation’s final punctuation.
• Do not add a period after the closing parenthesis in either case.

Block quotation with parenthetical citation:

Researchers have studied how people talk to themselves:

Inner speech is a paradoxical phenomenon. It is an experience that is central to many people’s everyday lives, and yet it presents considerable challenges to any effort to study it scientifically. Nevertheless, a wide range of methodologies and approaches have combined to shed light on the subjective experience of inner speech and its cognitive and neural underpinnings. (Alderson-Day & Fernyhough, 2015, p. 957)

Block quotation with narrative citation:

Flores et al. (2018) described how they addressed potential researcher bias when working with an intersectional community of transgender people of color:

Everyone on the research team belonged to a stigmatized group but also held privileged identities. Throughout the research process, we attended to the ways in which our privileged and oppressed identities may have influenced the research process, findings, and presentation of results. (p. 311)

Essay Writing: In-Text Citations

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In-text Citations

What are In-Text Citations?

You must cite (give credit) all information sources used in your essay or research paper whenever and wherever you use them.

When citing sources in the text of your paper, you must list:

● The author’s last name

● The year  the information was published.

Types of In-Text Citations: Narrative vs Parenthetical

A  narrative citation gives the author's name as part of the sentence .

• Example of a Narrative Citation: According to Edwards (2017) , a lthough Smith and Carlos's protest at the 1968 Olympics initially drew widespread criticism, it also led to fundamental reforms in the organizational structure of American amateur athletics.

A  parenthetical citation puts the source information in parentheses—first or last—but does not include it in  the narrative  flow.

• Example of a Parenthetical Citation:  Although Tommie Smith and John Carlos paid a heavy price in the immediate aftermath of the protests, they were later vindicated by society at large (Edwards, 2017) .

Full citation for this source (this belongs on the Reference Page of your research paper or essay):

Edwards, H. (2017).  The Revolt of the Black Athlete: 50th Anniversary Edition.  University of Illinois Press.

Sample In-text Citations

Note: This example is a  direct quote. It is an exact quotation directly from the text of the article. All direct quotes should appear in quotation marks: "...."

Try keeping direct quotes to a minimum in your writing. You need to show your understanding of the source material by being able to paraphrase or summarize it. 

List the author’s last name only (no initials) and the year the information was published, like this:

(Dodge, 2008 ). ( Author , Date).

IF you use a direct quote, add the page number to your citation, like this: 

( Dodge , 2008 , p. 125 ).

( Author , Date , page number )

What information should I cite in my paper/essay?

Credit these sources when you mention their information in any way: direct quotation, paraphrase, or summarize.

What should you credit?

Any information that you learned from another source, including:

● statistics

EXCEPTION: Information that is common knowledge: e.g., The Bronx is a borough of New York City.

Quick Sheet: APA 7 Citations

Quick help with apa 7 citations.

• Quick Sheet - Citing Journal Articles, Websites & Videos, and Creating In-Text Citations A quick guide to the most frequently-used types of APA 7 citations.

In-text Citation Tutorial

• Formatting In-text Citations, Full Citations, and Block Quotes In APA 7 Style This presentation will help you understand when, why, and how to use in-text citations in your APA style paper.

Download the In-text Citations presentation  (above)  for an in-depth look at how to correctly cite your sources in the text of your paper.

SIgnal Phrase Activity

Paraphrasing activity from the excelsior owl, in-text citation quiz.

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• How to Quote | Citing Quotes in Harvard & APA

How to Quote | Citing Quotes in Harvard & APA

Published on 15 April 2022 by Shona McCombes and Jack Caulfield. Revised on 3 September 2022.

Quoting means copying a passage of someone else’s words and crediting the source. To quote a source, you must ensure:

• The quoted text is enclosed in quotation marks (usually single quotation marks in UK English, though double is acceptable as long as you’re consistent) or formatted as a block quote
• The original author is correctly cited
• The text is identical to the original

The exact format of a quote depends on its length and on which citation style you are using. Quoting and citing correctly is essential to avoid plagiarism , which is easy to detect with a good plagiarism checker .

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Table of contents

How to cite a quote in harvard and apa style, introducing quotes, quotes within quotes, shortening or altering a quote, block quotes, when should i use quotes, frequently asked questions about quoting sources.

Every time you quote, you must cite the source correctly . This looks slightly different depending on the citation style you’re using.

Citing a quote in Harvard style

When you include a quote in Harvard style, you must add a Harvard in-text citation giving the author’s last name, the year of publication, and a page number if available. Any full stop or comma appears after the citation, not within the quotation marks.

Citations can be parenthetical or narrative. In a parenthetical citation , you place all the information in brackets after the quote. In a narrative citation , you name the author in your sentence (followed by the year), and place the page number after the quote.

• Evolution is a gradual process that ‘can act only by very short and slow steps’ (Darwin, 1859, p. 510) . Darwin (1859) explains that evolution ‘can act only by very short and slow steps’ (p. 510) .

Complete guide to Harvard style

Citing a quote in APA Style

To cite a direct quote in APA , you must include the author’s last name, the year, and a page number, all separated by commas. If the quote appears on a single page, use ‘p.’; if it spans a page range, use ‘pp.’

An APA in-text citation can be parenthetical or narrative. In a parenthetical citation , you place all the information in parentheses after the quote. In a narrative citation , you name the author in your sentence (followed by the year), and place the page number after the quote.

Punctuation marks such as full stops and commas are placed after the citation, not within the quotation marks.

• Evolution is a gradual process that ‘can act only by very short and slow steps’ (Darwin, 1859, p. 510) .
• Darwin (1859) explains that evolution ‘can act only by very short and slow steps’ (p. 510) .

Complete guide to APA

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Make sure you integrate quotes properly into your text by introducing them in your own words, showing the reader why you’re including the quote and providing any context necessary to understand it.  Don’t  present quotations as stand-alone sentences.

There are three main strategies you can use to introduce quotes in a grammatically correct way:

• Add an introductory sentence
• Use an introductory signal phrase
• Integrate the quote into your own sentence

The following examples use APA Style citations, but these strategies can be used in all styles.

Introductory sentence

Introduce the quote with a full sentence ending in a colon . Don’t use a colon if the text before the quote isn’t a full sentence.

If you name the author in your sentence, you may use present-tense verbs, such as “states’, ‘argues’, ‘explains’, ‘writes’, or ‘reports’, to describe the content of the quote.

• In Denmark, a recent poll shows that: ‘A membership referendum held today would be backed by 55 percent of Danish voters’ (Levring, 2018, p. 3).
• In Denmark, a recent poll shows that support for the EU has grown since the Brexit vote: ‘A membership referendum held today would be backed by 55 percent of Danish voters’ (Levring, 2018, p. 3).
• Levring (2018) reports that support for the EU has grown since the Brexit vote: ‘A membership referendum held today would be backed by 55 percent of Danish voters’ (p. 3).

Introductory signal phrase

You can also use a signal phrase that mentions the author or source but doesn’t form a full sentence. In this case, you follow the phrase with a comma instead of a colon.

• According to a recent poll, ‘A membership referendum held today would be backed by 55 percent of Danish voters’ (Levring, 2018, p. 3).
• As Levring (2018) explains, ‘A membership referendum held today would be backed by 55 percent of Danish voters’ (p. 3).

Integrated into your own sentence

To quote a phrase that doesn’t form a full sentence, you can also integrate it as part of your sentence, without any extra punctuation.

• A recent poll suggests that EU membership ‘would be backed by 55 percent of Danish voters’ in a referendum (Levring, 2018, p. 3).
• Levring (2018) reports that EU membership ‘would be backed by 55 percent of Danish voters’ in a referendum (p. 3).

When you quote text that itself contains another quote, this is called a nested quotation or a quote within a quote. It may occur, for example, when quoting dialogue from a novel.

To distinguish this quote from the surrounding quote, you enclose it in double (instead of single) quotation marks (even if this involves changing the punctuation from the original text). Make sure to close both sets of quotation marks at the appropriate moments.

Note that if you only quote the nested quotation itself, and not the surrounding text, you can just use single quotation marks.

• Carraway introduces his narrative by quoting his father: ‘ ‘ Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone, ‘ he told me, ‘ just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had ‘ ‘ (Fitzgerald 1).
• Carraway introduces his narrative by quoting his father: ‘”Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone,” he told me, “just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had “  (Fitzgerald 1).
• Carraway introduces his narrative by quoting his father: ‘“Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone,” he told me, “just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had”’ (Fitzgerald 1).
• Carraway begins by quoting his father’s invocation to ‘remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had’ (Fitzgerald 1).

Note:  When the quoted text in the source comes from another source, it’s best to just find that original source in order to quote it directly. If you can’t find the original source, you can instead cite it indirectly .

Often, incorporating a quote smoothly into your text requires you to make some changes to the original text. It’s fine to do this, as long as you clearly mark the changes you’ve made to the quote.

Shortening a quote

If some parts of a passage are redundant or irrelevant, you can shorten the quote by removing words, phrases, or sentences and replacing them with an ellipsis (…). Put a space before and after the ellipsis.

Be careful that removing the words doesn’t change the meaning. The ellipsis indicates that some text has been removed, but the shortened quote should still accurately represent the author’s point.

Altering a quote

You can add or replace words in a quote when necessary. This might be because the original text doesn’t fit grammatically with your sentence (e.g., it’s in a different tense), or because extra information is needed to clarify the quote’s meaning.

Use brackets to distinguish words that you have added from words that were present in the original text.

The Latin term ‘ sic ‘ is used to indicate a (factual or grammatical) mistake in a quotation. It shows the reader that the mistake is from the quoted material, not a typo of your own.

In some cases, it can be useful to italicise part of a quotation to add emphasis, showing the reader that this is the key part to pay attention to. Use the phrase ’emphasis added’ to show that the italics were not part of the original text.

You usually don’t need to use brackets to indicate minor changes to punctuation or capitalisation made to ensure the quote fits the style of your text.

If you quote more than a few lines from a source, you must format it as a block quote . Instead of using quotation marks, you set the quote on a new line and indent it so that it forms a separate block of text.

Block quotes are cited just like regular quotes, except that if the quote ends with a full stop, the citation appears after the full stop.

To the end of his days Bilbo could never remember how he found himself outside, without a hat, a walking-stick or any money, or anything that he usually took when he went out; leaving his second breakfast half-finished and quite unwashed-up, pushing his keys into Gandalf’s hands, and running as fast as his furry feet could carry him down the lane, past the great Mill, across The Water, and then on for a mile or more. (16)

Avoid relying too heavily on quotes in academic writing . To integrate a source , it’s often best to paraphrase , which means putting the passage into your own words. This helps you integrate information smoothly and keeps your own voice dominant.

However, there are some situations in which quotes are more appropriate.

When focusing on language

If you want to comment on how the author uses language (for example, in literary analysis ), it’s necessary to quote so that the reader can see the exact passage you are referring to.

When giving evidence

To convince the reader of your argument, interpretation or position on a topic, it’s often helpful to include quotes that support your point. Quotes from primary sources (for example, interview transcripts or historical documents) are especially credible as evidence.

When presenting an author’s position or definition

When you’re referring to secondary sources such as scholarly books and journal articles, try to put others’ ideas in your own words when possible.

But if a passage does a great job at expressing, explaining, or defining something, and it would be very difficult to paraphrase without changing the meaning or losing the weakening the idea’s impact, it’s worth quoting directly.

A quote is an exact copy of someone else’s words, usually enclosed in quotation marks and credited to the original author or speaker.

To present information from other sources in academic writing , it’s best to paraphrase in most cases. This shows that you’ve understood the ideas you’re discussing and incorporates them into your text smoothly.

It’s appropriate to quote when:

• Changing the phrasing would distort the meaning of the original text
• You want to discuss the author’s language choices (e.g., in literary analysis )
• You’re presenting a precise definition
• You’re looking in depth at a specific claim

Every time you quote a source , you must include a correctly formatted in-text citation . This looks slightly different depending on the citation style .

For example, a direct quote in APA is cited like this: ‘This is a quote’ (Streefkerk, 2020, p. 5).

Every in-text citation should also correspond to a full reference at the end of your paper.

In scientific subjects, the information itself is more important than how it was expressed, so quoting should generally be kept to a minimum. In the arts and humanities, however, well-chosen quotes are often essential to a good paper.

In social sciences, it varies. If your research is mainly quantitative , you won’t include many quotes, but if it’s more qualitative , you may need to quote from the data you collected .

As a general guideline, quotes should take up no more than 5–10% of your paper. If in doubt, check with your instructor or supervisor how much quoting is appropriate in your field.

If you’re quoting from a text that paraphrases or summarises other sources and cites them in parentheses , APA recommends retaining the citations as part of the quote:

• Smith states that ‘the literature on this topic (Jones, 2015; Sill, 2019; Paulson, 2020) shows no clear consensus’ (Smith, 2019, p. 4).

Footnote or endnote numbers that appear within quoted text should be omitted.

If you want to cite an indirect source (one you’ve only seen quoted in another source), either locate the original source or use the phrase ‘as cited in’ in your citation.

A block quote is a long quote formatted as a separate ‘block’ of text. Instead of using quotation marks , you place the quote on a new line, and indent the entire quote to mark it apart from your own words.

APA uses block quotes for quotes that are 40 words or longer.

Cite this Scribbr article

If you want to cite this source, you can copy and paste the citation or click the ‘Cite this Scribbr article’ button to automatically add the citation to our free Reference Generator.

McCombes, S. & Caulfield, J. (2022, September 03). How to Quote | Citing Quotes in Harvard & APA. Scribbr. Retrieved 30 July 2024, from https://www.scribbr.co.uk/working-sources/quoting/

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How to Quote in a Research Paper

Last Updated: September 30, 2022 Fact Checked

This article was co-authored by Christopher Taylor, PhD . Christopher Taylor is an Adjunct Assistant Professor of English at Austin Community College in Texas. He received his PhD in English Literature and Medieval Studies from the University of Texas at Austin in 2014. There are 16 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 910,144 times.

A research paper can be made stronger through the use of quotations. You may use quotes when you need to cite a key piece of primary source material, strengthen your argument through another writer's work, or highlight a term of art. It is important to both use quotations effectively and cite them properly to write an effective paper and avoid plagiarizing.

Using Different Types of Quotes

• Use a complete sentence to incorporate a dropped quote. Ex: As Rembrandt’s skill developed, he began painting landscapes that are “romantic and visionary” (Wallace 96).
• Use a short phrase to incorporate a dropped quote: Rembrandt’s landscapes are “romantic and visionary” (Wallace 96).

• Use a complete sentence to introduce a full sentence quote. Ex: Over the course of time Rembrandt’s work began to change and focus on different themes, but as Wallace points out: "Rembrandt’s great gift as an etcher lay in preserving a sense of spontaneity while scrupulously attending to close detail” (142).
• Use a signal phrase to introduce your full sentence quote. Ex: As Wallace states, “Rembrandt’s great gift as an etcher lay in preserving a sense of spontaneity while scrupulously attending to close detail” (142).

• Introduce your block quote with a colon. Ex: According to Wallace: (add a line break here, and then indent the entire quote).
• Block quotes do not use quotation marks. You have already stated who the author is/what is being referred to in the introduction sentence. Add the in-text parenthetical citation after the period at the end of the quote, though.
• If your block quote is inside a paragraph, you don’t have to start a new paragraph at the end of it. Simply add another line break and begin writing along the left margin (with no indent). [4] X Research source However, you will need to indent the second paragraph by an extra 0.25 in (0.64 cm) if you are citing more than 1 paragraph. [5] X Trustworthy Source Purdue Online Writing Lab Trusted resource for writing and citation guidelines Go to source

• Change the structure of the sentence by moving clauses around. Aim to change at least half of the sentence into a new structure, but also make sure that the grammar is correct and the meaning of the sentence is still clear. You can use a thesaurus to exchange words with synonyms.
• Paraphrasing should only be done if you are certain that you understand the content you are copying. If you are unclear as to the meaning of the quote, you won’t be able to put it adequately into your own words.
• When you write your paraphrase, don’t look at the quote. Keep the meaning in your head and create a new sentence to match. [7] X Research source

Formatting Your Quotes

• To use a comma, you might structure the quote with in sentence like this: “Yogurt provides beneficial bacteria to your gut,” so it is good to include 1 serving per day in your diet.
• To use a period, you might structure the quote like this: “Carrots are a valuable source of vitamin A.”

• Example of a quotation that comes with a question mark: Alice said “but where will I go?” (24).
• Example of asking a question about a quotation: With so much contention, will literary scholars ever agree on “the dream-like quality of Alice’s adventure” (39)?
• Example of a question about a quoted question: At this point in the story, readers communally ask “but where will I go?” (24).

• Ellipses can be used in the center of a quote to leave out words that you feel add unnecessary length to the statement without adding value. For example: As the man stated, “reading the book was...enlightening and life-changing.” This is done rather than: As the man stated, “reading the book over the last few weeks was not only incredibly enjoyable, but also enlightening and life-changing.”
• Ellipses should be used only before or after a quote, not both. If you are only use a part of a quote from the center of a selection, it is just a partial or dropped quote. However, keep in mind that ellipses rarely come at the beginning of a quotation. [11] X Research source

• For example: As scholars have noted, “Rembrandt’s portrait of her [Henrickje, his mistress] was both accurate and emotion-filled” (Wallace 49).

• Ex: As Dormer has noted, “his work is much more valuable now then [sic] it was at the time of its creation.”

Quoting in Different Styles

• Ex: We can therefore ascertain that “Rembrandt’s decline in popularity may have been his dedication to Biblical painting” (Wallace 112).
• Ex: According to some, “another reason for Rembrandt’s decline in popularity may have been his dedication to Biblical painting” (Wallace 112), but not everyone agree on this matter.
• Ex: Wallace states that “another reason for Rembrandt’s decline in popularity may have been his dedication to Biblical painting” (112). [15] X Research source

• Ex: As Billy’s character is described, we learn “Billy wasn’t a Catholic, even though he grew up with a ghastly crucifix on his wall” (Vonnegut 1969).
• Ex: Vonnegut gives a factual statement with a clear opinion thrown in when he says “Billy wasn’t a Catholic, even though he grew up with a ghastly crucifix on his wall” (1969).
• Ex: With the knowledge that “Billy wasn’t a Catholic, even though he grew up with a ghastly crucifix on his wall” (Vonnegut 1969), we begin to understand his philosophical standings.

Quoting Successfully

Community Q&A

• Keep a list of quotations as you take research notes, and star your favorites to return later. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0
• Watch for quotations that are quoted by other researchers again and again. Often secondary material will give you hints to finding the best parts of the primary sources. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0
• Quote the opposition so that you can directly pick apart their argument. It's easier to argue against someone if you're using exactly what they said and pointing out its flaws. Otherwise, the opposition can claim that you simply twisted their meaning. Rely on their words and attack directly. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0

• Don't let a research paper become a sea of he-said, she-said. While you want to set up the arguments that have been made on both sides in the past, you also want to make a compelling argument for yourself. Rephrasing, re-organizing an argument, and synthesizing different arguments in your own words makes it clear that you understand what you've researched and makes the paper interesting to read. The reader is searching for a new way to understand the research or a new idea. Too many quotes tend to bury the lead. Thanks Helpful 1 Not Helpful 0
• Don't rely too heavily on one source. It's easy to fall in love with a single book when doing research, particularly if there aren't a lot of books on the subject and one author particularly agrees with you. Try to limit how much you quote that author, particularly if a lot of your argument is relying on his or her groundwork already. Look for quotations that complement or challenge that person, and provide your own analysis. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0
• Don't be a sloppy note-taker. Unfortunately, accidental plagiarism is all too common, and it has serious consequences. You may not have meant to plagiarize, but if you write someone else's words down without indicating that you are using a direct quotation, you are plagiarizing whether it was intentional or not (after all, merely relying on lecture notes and not on your own research is lazy and not acknowledging direct quotes as you take notes from texts reflects poor organization). Always indicate quotations in your notes. It's also better to write down a lot of quotations and then paraphrase them later than to write down a paraphrased version. The danger here, particularly if you don't alter the quote much, is that you'll unwittingly change it back to the quotation later, in revision. It's better to have the original right in front of you. If you find yourself unable to choose better language, just quote it properly. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0

You Might Also Like

• ↑ https://midway.libguides.com/c.php?g=1100261&p=8025172
• ↑ https://facultyweb.ivcc.edu/rrambo/eng1001/quotes.htm
• ↑ https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/mla_style/mla_formatting_and_style_guide/mla_formatting_quotations.html
• ↑ http://public.wsu.edu/~campbelld/engl402/cited.htm
• ↑ https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_writing/punctuation/quotation_marks/index.html
• ↑ http://writing.wisc.edu/Handbook/QPA_paraphrase2.html
• ↑ http://www.thepunctuationguide.com/ellipses.html
• ↑ https://www.unr.edu/writing-speaking-center/student-resources/writing-speaking-resources/mla-quotation-punctuation
• ↑ https://guides.libraries.psu.edu/mlacitation/intext
• ↑ http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/03/
• ↑ https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/citations/quotations
• ↑ https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/chicago_manual_17th_edition/cmos_formatting_and_style_guide/general_format.html
• ↑ https://writingcenter.uagc.edu/quoting-paraphrasing-summarizing
• ↑ https://writingcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/quotations/
• ↑ https://academicguides.waldenu.edu/writingcenter/evidence/quotation

About This Article

To quote in a research paper in APA style, use in-text parenthetical citations at the end of quotes that have the author's last name and the year the text was published. If you mention the author's name in the sentence with the quote, just include the year the text was published in the citation. If you're citing a quote in MLA style, do the same thing you would for APA style, but use the page number instead of the year the text was published. To learn how to quote a research paper in Chicago style, scroll down! Did this summary help you? Yes No

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Suggested Ways to Introduce Quotations

When you quote another writer's words, it's best to introduce or contextualize the quote. 

How To Quote In An Essay?

To introduce a quote in an essay, don't forget to include author's last name and page number (MLA) or author, date, and page number (APA) in your citation. Shown below are some possible ways to introduce quotations. The examples use MLA format.

Use A Full Sentence Followed by A Colon To Introduce A Quotation

• The setting emphasizes deception: "Nothing is as it appears" (Smith 1).
• Piercy ends the poem on an ironic note: "To every woman a happy ending" (25).

Begin A Sentence with Your Own Words, Then Complete It with Quoted Words

Note that in the second example below, a slash with a space on either side ( / ) marks a line break in the original poem.

• Hamlet's task is to avenge a "foul and most unnatural murder" (Shakespeare 925).
• The speaker is mystified by her sleeping baby, whose "moth-breath / flickers among the flat pink roses" (Plath 17).

Use An Introductory Phrase Naming The Source, Followed By A Comma to Quote A Critic or Researcher

Note that the first letter after the quotation marks should be upper case. According to MLA guidelines, if you change the case of a letter from the original, you must indicate this with brackets. APA format doesn't require brackets.

• According to Smith, "[W]riting is fun" (215).
• In Smith's words, " . . .
• In Smith's view, " . . .

Use A Descriptive Verb, Followed by A Comma To Introduce A Critic's Words

Avoid using says unless the words were originally spoken aloud, for instance, during an interview.

• Smith states, "This book is terrific" (102).
• Smith remarks, " . . .
• Smith writes, " . . .
• Smith notes, " . . .
• Smith comments, " . . .
• Smith observes, " . . .
• Smith concludes, " . . .
• Smith reports, " . . .
• Smith maintains, " . . .
• Smith adds, " . . .

Don't Follow It with A Comma If Your Lead into The Quotation Ends in That or As

The first letter of the quotation should be lower case.

• Smith points out that "millions of students would like to burn this book" (53).
• Smith emphasizes that " . . .
• Smith interprets the hand washing in MacBeth as "an attempt at absolution" (106).
• Smith describes the novel as "a celebration of human experience" (233).

Other Writing Resources

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Encyclopedia

Writing with artificial intelligence, quotation – when & how to use quotes in your writing.

• © 2023 by Joseph M. Moxley - Professor of English - USF

What is a Quotation?

A quotation refers to the precise replication of words or phrases from another source, embedded within one’s own writing or speech. To distinguish these directly borrowed elements from original content, writers use quotation marks. Additionally, they provide citations or footnotes to trace back to the original source, maintaining the integrity of the content.

Related Concepts: Copyright ; Information Has Value ; Inserting or Altering Words in a Direct Quotation ; Intellectual Property ; Omitting Words from a Direct Quotation ; Plagiarism ; Scholarship as a Conversation

Why Does Quotation Matter?

When writers incorporate quotations, they aren’t merely borrowing words. They’re strategically weaving the collective wisdom of past thinkers into their narrative, bolstering their arguments, and enhancing their credibility .

• Recognition of Scholarly Foundations: Quotations enable writers to highlight and pay respect to the foundational works, insights, and contributions of past scholars, researchers, and theorists. By doing so, they acknowledge the deep roots of knowledge and ideas that have paved the way for present-day discussions and discoveries.
• Authentic Representation in Discourse: Quotations preserve the precise wording of an author, grounding the reader directly in the original discourse. Unlike paraphrases or summaries , which reinterpret or condense an author’s message, quotations maintain the unaltered essence, subtleties, and nuances of the original statement.
• Validation: Quotations may function as compelling evidence , fortifying the claims a writer has made in their argument
• Building upon Established Knowledge: Quotations illuminate existing ideas, paving the way for writers to elaborate on, challenge, or pivot them toward new directions.
• Preservation of Nuance: Quotations capture the intricate subtleties of unique expressions and poetic language, ensuring that their inherent meaning remains unaltered.
• Positioning within a Discourse: Through quotations, writers can align or differentiate themselves within specific intellectual landscapes, debates, or traditions.
• Credibility: Meticulous citation and thoughtful quotation are hallmarks of a diligent writer, revealing their commitment to professional and ethical codes of conduct.

What Do Writers Quote in Academic and Professional Writing

In both academic and professional writing , quotation serves multiple functions:

• Authenticity and Credibility : Quoting directly from a source provides evidence that the information is based on established research or authoritative accounts . It adds weight to arguments, showcasing that they aren’t merely opinions but are backed by recognized studies or experts in the field.
• Respect for Copyright & Intellectual Property : Academic and workplace writers, trained in critical literacy skills , follow citation conventions meticulously. This diligence stems from their respect for copyright laws and the broader principles of intellectual property . Properly citing and quoting indicates an acknowledgment of the original creator’s contribution and ensures that their work is not appropriated without due credit.
• Preserving Original Meaning: Paraphrasing or summarizing can sometimes inadvertently alter the original meaning or nuance of a text. Quoting ensures that the exact words and context provided by the original author are retained.
• Engaging the Reader: Quotations can be used strategically to capture the reader’s attention. A well-chosen quote can make an article or essay more engaging, invoking curiosity or emphasizing a point.
• Paying Homage: Quoting acknowledges the original creators of content. It’s a form of respect, indicating that their words have made an impact and are deemed worthy of repetition and recognition.
• Avoiding Plagiarism : In academic and professional contexts, using someone else’s words or ideas without proper citation is considered unethical and can have serious repercussions. Quoting, accompanied by appropriate citation, ensures that credit is given where it’s due.
• Enriching Content: Quotations can introduce diverse voices and perspectives into a piece of writing. They can be used to support or counter arguments, provide alternative viewpoints, or illustrate a point more vividly.
• Encouraging Deeper Engagement: When readers encounter a quotation, especially one from a recognized authority or a profound piece of literature, it prompts them to reflect on its meaning, perhaps encouraging them to seek out the original source and engage more deeply with the topic .
• Clarifying Complex Ideas: At times, original texts may communicate complex ideas in a way that’s particularly clear or compelling. Quoting such passages can assist the writer in conveying these complexities without the risk of oversimplification.

When Should You Use Quotations in Your Writing?

There are five major reasons for using quotations:

• Evidential Support: To back up claims or arguments with concrete evidence .
• Illustrative Purposes: To give specific examples or to illuminate a point .
• Eloquence and Impact: Sometimes, the original phrasing is so poignant or well-expressed that paraphrasing might dilute its power or clarity.
• Appeal to Authority: Quoting renowned figures or experts can bolster the credibility of an argument .
• Attribution : To give credit to the original source or author and avoid plagiarism .

When Should I Quote as Opposed to Paraphrasing or Summarizing?

Quoting, paraphrasing , and summarizing are all essential techniques in writing , allowing writers to incorporate the ideas of others into their work.

In general, however, because readers do not want to read miscellaneous quotations that are thrown together one after another, you are generally better off paraphrasing and summarizing material and using direct quotations sparingly. Students—from middle school, college, through graduate school—sometimes believe loads of quotations bring a great deal of credibility , ethos , to the text . Yet, if too many quotes are provided, the text loses clarity .

Like everything else in life, balance is the key. The problem with texts that use extensive direct quotations is that they tend to take attention away from the writer’s voice , purpose , thesis . If you offer quotations every few lines, your ideas become subordinate to other people’s ideas and voices, which often contradicts your instructor’s reasons for assigning research papers—that is, to learn what you think about a subject.

Below are some general strategies you might consider when determine it’s best to quote, paraphrase, or summarize:

• Heart of the Argument: When a passage directly encapsulates the essence of the discussion, quoting ensures the original message isn’t diluted.
• Eloquence & Precision: Some texts are so beautifully articulated or precisely worded that rephrasing would diminish their impact or clarity .
• Eyewitness Accounts: Dramatic firsthand accounts of events can lose their emotional potency if not presented verbatim.
• Influential Authorities: Quoting recognized experts or influential figures can lend credibility to an argument .
• Pertinent Data: Specific statistics or data points, when exactness is crucial, should be quoted directly.
• Challenging to Rephrase: Some complex ideas or specialized terminologies can be hard to rephrase without altering the original meaning.

Paraphrasing

• Clarification: When the original text is dense or hard to understand, a paraphrase can clarify the message for the reader.
• Integration: To weave source material more seamlessly into one’s writing, a paraphrase can be more fluid than a direct quote.
• Modification: If a writer wishes to emphasize a particular aspect of the source material or adapt it for a different audience , paraphrasing allows for this flexibility.

Summarizing

• Overview: Summaries are excellent for providing readers with a snapshot of a larger work or body of research.
• Brevity: When the main gist of a longer text is relevant, but details aren’t necessary, summarizing captures the essence in fewer words.

In all cases, whether quoting, paraphrasing, or summarizing, proper attribution is vital to respect the original author’s intellectual property and to provide readers with a clear path to the primary source.

Is It Okay to Edit Quotations for Brevity and Clarity ?

Yes, editing quotations for clarity and brevity is often necessary, especially when you want to emphasize your own voice and perspective in your writing . Utilizing direct quotations from reliable sources enhances your credibility , but extensive quotations can overshadow your voice and detract from your main argument . Responsible writers prioritize both the quality and the quantity of their quotations, selecting only the most pertinent words or phrases to articulate their points effectively.

How Can I Effectively Shorten a Quote?

• Opt for integrating the part of a quotation that is most impactful, concise, and uniquely expressive.
• Extract only the key segments of the quote that align with your argument , employing ellipses where you omit sections.
• Aim for quotations that span no more than two lines.
• Adhere to the 10% rule: quotations shouldn’t exceed 10% of your paper’s total word count.
• Always respect guidelines given by instructors or publishers regarding quotation length.

Example: Trimming a Quote for Brevity

Original quote:.

“Hand-washing is especially important for children in child care settings. Young children cared for in groups outside the home are at greater risk of respiratory and gastrointestinal diseases, which can easily spread to family members and other contacts. Be sure your child care provider promotes frequent hand-washing or use of alcohol-based hand sanitizers. Ask whether the children are required to wash their hands several times a day — not just before meals.” (“Hand-washing: Do’s and Don’ts” 2)

Revised Quote with Context :

Parents should be concerned about their child’s hand-washing habits—not only under supervision at home, but when the child is being cared for by others. Experts from the Mayo Clinic staff advise that “[h]and-washing is especially important for children in child care settings. . . . Be sure your child care provider promotes frequent hand-washing” (“Hand-washing: Do’s and Don’ts” 2).

What is the Purpose of Ellipses in Quotations?

Ellipses, represented by three dots ( . . . ), indicate that a portion of the original text has been removed for brevity , relevance, or clarity.

How Should Ellipses Be Formatted Within a Quotation?

• Spacing : There should be a space before, between, and after each of the dots. Example :“Original thought . . . remains crucial.”

When Is It Appropriate to Use Ellipses in a Quotation?

• To remove non-essential information that doesn’t alter the quote’s original meaning.
• To make the quotation fit seamlessly into the writer’s sentence or argument.

Are There Any Cautions to Consider When Using Ellipses?

• Avoid altering the original intent or meaning of the quotation.
• Refrain from overusing ellipses; excessive omissions can make the quote unclear or misleading.
• Do not start or end a quotation with ellipses, unless it’s essential to convey that the quote is part of a larger context.

How Do I Use Ellipses After a Complete Sentence?

If you’re omitting content following a complete sentence, the ellipsis points should come after the sentence’s ending punctuation.

Correct : “He enjoyed the evening. . . . They discussed various topics.”

Incorrect : “He enjoyed the evening. . . They discussed various topics.”

Remember, while ellipses help in streamlining quotations, they should be used judiciously to ensure the integrity of the original text remains intact.

Can I Make Changes to Quotations? If So, How to Do I Alert My Readers to Those Changes?

• Purpose of Brackets in Quotations : Brackets [ ] are used to insert or alter words in a direct quotation for clarity, explanation, or integration.
• Example: “It [driving] imposes a heavy procedural workload on cognition…”
• Reminder: The word ‘driving’ clarifies the pronoun ‘it’.
• Example: “[D]riving imposes a heavy procedural workload [visual and motor demands] on cognition…”
• Point: Brackets offer deeper insights on the “procedural workload”.
• Example: Salvucci and Taatgen propose that “[t]he heavy cognitive workload of driving suggests…”
• Note: The change from uppercase ‘T’ to lowercase ‘t’ is indicated with brackets.
• Example: “Drivers [are] increasingly engaging in secondary tasks while driving.”
• Note: The verb changes from past to present tense, and this change is enclosed in brackets.
• Incorrect: “It (driving) imposes a heavy procedural workload…”
• Correct: “It [driving] imposes a heavy procedural workload…”
• A Key Caution : Don’t misuse brackets to alter the original text’s intent or meaning. Always represent the author’s intent accurately.
• Do use brackets to enclose inserted words for clarity or brief explanation.
• Do use brackets to indicate changes in letter case or verb tense.
• Don’t use parentheses in these scenarios.
• Never use bracketed material to twist the author’s original meaning.

Remember, the aim is to ensure clarity and respect the original author’s intent while making the quotation fit seamlessly into your writing.

For More Information on Shortening Quotations, See Also:

• Inserting or Altering Words in a Direct Quotation
• Omitting Words from a Direct Quotation (MLA)
• Omitting Words from a Direct Quotation (APA)

Mayo Clinic Staff. (2021, December 10). Hand-washing: Do’s and don’ts. Mayo Clinic .

Related Articles:

Block quotations, recommended.

Academic Writing – How to Write for the Academic Community

Structured Revision – How to Revise Your Work

Professional Writing – How to Write for the Professional World

Credibility & Authority – How to Be Credible & Authoritative in Research, Speech & Writing

Citation Guide – Learn How to Cite Sources in Academic and Professional Writing

Page Design – How to Design Messages for Maximum Impact

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• Knowledge Base
• Citing sources

How to Cite Sources | Citation Generator & Quick Guide

Citing your sources is essential in  academic writing . Whenever you quote or paraphrase a source (such as a book, article, or webpage), you have to include a  citation crediting the original author.

Failing to properly cite your sources counts as plagiarism , since you’re presenting someone else’s ideas as if they were your own.

The most commonly used citation styles are APA and MLA. The free Scribbr Citation Generator is the quickest way to cite sources in these styles. Simply enter the URL, DOI, or title, and we’ll generate an accurate, correctly formatted citation.

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Table of contents

When do you need to cite sources, which citation style should you use, in-text citations, reference lists and bibliographies.

Scribbr Citation Generator

Other useful citation tools

Citation examples and full guides, frequently asked questions about citing sources.

Citations are required in all types of academic texts. They are needed for several reasons:

• To avoid plagiarism by indicating when you’re taking information from another source
• To give proper credit to the author of that source
• To allow the reader to consult your sources for themselves

A citation is needed whenever you integrate a source into your writing. This usually means quoting or paraphrasing:

• To quote a source , copy a short piece of text word for word and put it inside quotation marks .
• To paraphrase a source , put the text into your own words. It’s important that the paraphrase is not too close to the original wording. You can use the paraphrasing tool if you don’t want to do this manually.

Citations are needed whether you quote or paraphrase, and whatever type of source you use. As well as citing scholarly sources like books and journal articles, don’t forget to include citations for any other sources you use for ideas, examples, or evidence. That includes websites, YouTube videos , and lectures .

Scribbr Citation Checker New

The AI-powered Citation Checker helps you avoid common mistakes such as:

• Missing commas and periods
• Incorrect usage of “et al.”
• Ampersands (&) in narrative citations
• Missing reference entries

Usually, your institution (or the journal you’re submitting to) will require you to follow a specific citation style, so check your guidelines or ask your instructor.

In some cases, you may have to choose a citation style for yourself. Make sure to pick one style and use it consistently:

• APA Style is widely used in the social sciences and beyond.
• MLA style is common in the humanities.
• Chicago notes and bibliography , common in the humanities
• Chicago author-date , used in the (social) sciences
• There are many other citation styles for different disciplines.

If in doubt, check with your instructor or read other papers from your field of study to see what style they follow.

In most styles, your citations consist of:

• Brief in-text citations at the relevant points in the text
• A reference list or bibliography containing full information on all the sources you’ve cited

In-text citations most commonly take the form of parenthetical citations featuring the last name of the source’s author and its year of publication (aka author-date citations).

An alternative to this type of in-text citation is the system used in numerical citation styles , where a number is inserted into the text, corresponding to an entry in a numbered reference list.

There are also note citation styles , where you place your citations in either footnotes or endnotes . Since they’re not embedded in the text itself, these citations can provide more detail and sometimes aren’t accompanied by a full reference list or bibliography.

A reference list (aka “Bibliography” or “Works Cited,” depending on the style) is where you provide full information on each of the sources you’ve cited in the text. It appears at the end of your paper, usually with a hanging indent applied to each entry.

The information included in reference entries is broadly similar, whatever citation style you’re using. For each source, you’ll typically include the:

• Author name
• Publication date
• Container (e.g., the book an essay was published in, the journal an article appeared in)
• Location (e.g., a URL or DOI , or sometimes a physical location)

The exact information included varies depending on the source type and the citation style. The order in which the information appears, and how you format it (e.g., capitalization, use of italics) also varies.

Most commonly, the entries in your reference list are alphabetized by author name. This allows the reader to easily find the relevant entry based on the author name in your in-text citation.

In numerical citation styles, the entries in your reference list are numbered, usually based on the order in which you cite them. The reader finds the right entry based on the number that appears in the text.

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Because each style has many small differences regarding things like italicization, capitalization , and punctuation , it can be difficult to get every detail right. Using a citation generator can save you a lot of time and effort.

Scribbr offers citation generators for both APA and MLA style. Both are quick, easy to use, and 100% free, with no ads and no registration required.

Just input a URL or DOI or add the source details manually, and the generator will automatically produce an in-text citation and reference entry in the correct format. You can save your reference list as you go and download it when you’re done, and even add annotations for an annotated bibliography .

Once you’ve prepared your citations, you might still be unsure if they’re correct and if you’ve used them appropriately in your text. This is where Scribbr’s other citation tools and services may come in handy:

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Citation Editing

Plagiarism means passing off someone else’s words or ideas as your own. It’s a serious offense in academia. Universities use plagiarism checking software to scan your paper and identify any similarities to other texts.

When you’re dealing with a lot of sources, it’s easy to make mistakes that could constitute accidental plagiarism. For example, you might forget to add a citation after a quote, or paraphrase a source in a way that’s too close to the original text.

Using a plagiarism checker yourself before you submit your work can help you spot these mistakes before they get you in trouble. Based on the results, you can add any missing citations and rephrase your text where necessary.

Try out the Scribbr Plagiarism Checker for free, or check out our detailed comparison of the best plagiarism checkers available online.

Scribbr Plagiarism Checker

Scribbr’s Citation Checker is a unique AI-powered tool that automatically detects stylistic errors and inconsistencies in your in-text citations. It also suggests a correction for every mistake.

Currently available for APA Style, this is the fastest and easiest way to make sure you’ve formatted your citations correctly. You can try out the tool for free below.

If you need extra help with your reference list, we also offer a more in-depth Citation Editing Service.

Our experts cross-check your in-text citations and reference entries, make sure you’ve included the correct information for each source, and improve the formatting of your reference page.

If you want to handle your citations yourself, Scribbr’s free Knowledge Base provides clear, accurate guidance on every aspect of citation. You can see citation examples for a variety of common source types below:

And you can check out our comprehensive guides to the most popular citation styles:

At college level, you must properly cite your sources in all essays , research papers , and other academic texts (except exams and in-class exercises).

Add a citation whenever you quote , paraphrase , or summarize information or ideas from a source. You should also give full source details in a bibliography or reference list at the end of your text.

The exact format of your citations depends on which citation style you are instructed to use. The most common styles are APA , MLA , and Chicago .

The abbreviation “ et al. ” (Latin for “and others”) is used to shorten citations of sources with multiple authors.

“Et al.” is used in APA in-text citations of sources with 3+ authors, e.g. (Smith et al., 2019). It is not used in APA reference entries .

Use “et al.” for 3+ authors in MLA in-text citations and Works Cited entries.

Use “et al.” for 4+ authors in a Chicago in-text citation , and for 10+ authors in a Chicago bibliography entry.

The Scribbr Citation Generator is developed using the open-source Citation Style Language (CSL) project and Frank Bennett’s citeproc-js . It’s the same technology used by dozens of other popular citation tools, including Mendeley and Zotero.

You can find all the citation styles and locales used in the Scribbr Citation Generator in our publicly accessible repository on Github .

APA format is widely used by professionals, researchers, and students in the social and behavioral sciences, including fields like education, psychology, and business.

Be sure to check the guidelines of your university or the journal you want to be published in to double-check which style you should be using.

MLA Style  is the second most used citation style (after APA ). It is mainly used by students and researchers in humanities fields such as literature, languages, and philosophy.

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• Donald Trump

My Uncle Donald Trump Told Me Disabled Americans Like My Son ‘Should Just Die’

W hen my uncle was elected President , I recognized what a highly privileged position I would be in. I would have some access to the White House. And as long as that was true, I wanted to make sure I used that access for something positive. I was eager to champion something my wife, Lisa, and I were deeply passionate about, something we lived every day: the challenges for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities and their families.

Our son William, our third child, was born on June 30, 1999. Within 24 hours, he went from seemingly healthy to fighting for his life in the NICU. Raising him was different from the start. William was diagnosed at three months with infantile spasms, a rare seizure disorder which in William's case altered his development physically and cognitively. We had so many questions: What would the future hold for someone like William? How far could he go? How much could he learn? Would he ever have the chance to do the things that other children do?

We just didn’t know. It took 15 years before his medical team could accurately pinpoint the cause of his condition: a KCNQ2 mutation, a genetic misfire that the doctors called a potassium channel deletion.

In our journey with William, Lisa and I had become close to some truly inspiring parents and dedicated advocates who were doing amazing work to improve the day-to-day reality for families like ours. It’s a huge lift for caregivers, not to mention the constant need to mitigate expenses . There are so many different demands and challenges. But there are things that the government can do—some things that can only be done by the government, both federal and state. We wanted to bring knowledgeable people to the White House, to see if we could make a difference. 

Lisa reached out to my cousin Ivanka, who was working in the White House as an advisor to the President. Ivanka got right back to her and said she’d be happy to help. She provided a contact for Ben Carson , the retired neurosurgeon who was secretary of housing and urban development. We brought several talented advocates with us for a meeting with Carson and members of his senior staff in April 2017. “Look,” I said as we got started, “I’m the least important person in the room.” I wanted the focus to be on the others, who knew a lot more than I did. They immediately started floating ideas, which was exactly why we were there. Our collective voice was being heard. It was a start.

In January 2020, just before COVID hit, Lisa, myself, and a team of advocates met with Chris Neeley, who headed the President’s Committee for People with Intellectual Disabilities, a much-needed federal advisory committee that promotes policies and initiatives that support independent and lifelong inclusion . We discussed the need for all medical schools to include courses that focus on people with intellectual and developmental disabilities . We emphasized how crucial it was for hospitals and other acute-care facilities to help patients transition from pediatric to adult services. We emphasized the importance of collecting sufficient data to explain medically complex disorders. This was not about more government spending. It was about smarter investing and greater efficiency.

We spent the next few months making calls and talking with officials and gathering our own recommendations, giving special attention to the critical need for housing support for people with disabilities. We were back in Washington in May.

By this time, COVID was raging. We were all masked up and COVID tested on the way into the White House Cabinet Room. Once we got inside, we sat down with Alex Azar , the administration’s secretary of health and human services, and Brett Giroir, the assistant secretary for health, both of whom served on the White House Coronavirus Task Force. The promising agency motto stated: HHS: Enhancing the Health and Well-Being of All Americans.

Sharp, direct, and to the point, Azar exhibited my kind of efficiency with no time to waste. His first question was, “OK, why are you here?”

I made a brief introduction. Our group included a leading doctor and several highly qualified advocates. What followed was a great discussion. Something clicked with Giroir—an idea for a program everyone could agree on that would cut through the bureaucracy and control costs and also yield better and more efficient medical outcomes.

Excellent. We were making progress.

“Really appreciate your coming in,” Azar finally said, more warmly than he had sounded at the start. “I know we’re going to see the President.”

The meeting I had assumed would be a quick handshake hello with Donald had turned into a 45-minute discussion in the Oval Office with all of us—Azar, Giroir, the advocates, and me. I never expected to be there so long. Donald seemed engaged, especially when several people in our group spoke about the heart-wrenching and expensive efforts they’d made to care for their profoundly disabled family members, who were constantly in and out of the hospital and living with complex arrays of challenges .

Donald was still Donald, of course. He bounced from subject to subject—disability to the stock market and back to disability. But promisingly, Donald seemed genuinely curious regarding the depth of medical needs across the U.S. and the individual challenges these families faced. He told the secretary and the assistant secretary to stay in touch with our group and to be supportive. 

After I left the office, I was standing with the others near the side entrance to the West Wing when Donald’s assistant caught up with me. “Your uncle would like to see you,” she said.

Azar was still in the Oval Office when I walked back in. “Hey, pal,” Donald said. “How’s everything going?”

“Good,” I said. “I appreciate your meeting with us.”

“Sure, happy to do it.”

He sounded interested and even concerned. I thought he had been touched by what the doctor and advocates in the meeting had just shared about their journey with their patients and their own family members. But I was wrong.

“Those people . . . ” Donald said, trailing off. “The shape they’re in, all the expenses, maybe those kinds of people should just die.” 

I truly did not know what to say. He was talking about expenses. We were talking about human lives. For Donald, I think it really was about the expenses, even though we were there to talk about efficiencies, smarter investments, and human dignity.

I turned and walked away.

When William was 9 years old, Lisa and I met with Donald and a medical fund was created for William's care by the Trump Family, a fund that was crucial to our ability to support him.

In the summer of 2018, William was in the hospital for almost three weeks with a serious case of life-threatening pneumonia. He was 19 and very sick. It was incredibly frightening for Lisa and me—and for his brother and sister too. It was always hard to know if moments like these could compromise his health to the point that we would lose him. These are the times that you reach for all the strength you have.

William came home with oxygen and a feeding tube. After more than two weeks on a ventilator, he needed to learn how to eat all over again. We were too often in these setback situations, but you move forward the best you can.

It’s times like these when family support is most needed and appreciated. At every opportunity, we let my aunts and uncles know how grateful we were for the medical fund for William’s care and recovery. We sent pictures and updates, as we had in the past. We got no personal responses, which was the norm. It was the dedicated support and genuine love of caregivers that helped us the most.

Uncle Robert died in 2020 , and the medical fund for William continued. It was enormously helpful with our home-care costs and medical expenses, and we were always grateful to my father’s siblings for contributing. But even before Robert’s death, their interest had seemed to begin waning. My cousin Eric, who was the administrator, called me to say the fund was running low. Donald was the only one contributing consistently. Eric said he’d been getting some resistance from Maryanne, Elizabeth, and Ann Marie, Robert’s widow. I really didn’t look forward to these calls.

“Why don’t you call Donald?” Eric said. “Talk to him about it.”

I thanked Eric for the heads-up and promised I would.

Soon thereafter, I was up at Briarcliff Manor, home of the Trump National Golf Club in Westchester, N.Y. Donald happened to be there.

He was talking with a group of people. I didn’t want to interrupt. I just said hi on my way through the clubhouse. I called him later that afternoon, and he answered.

I got him up to speed on what Eric had told me. I said I’d heard the fund for William was running low, and unfortunately, the expenses certainly were not easing up as our son got older. In fact, with inflation and other pressures, the needs were greater than they’d been. “We’re getting some blowback from Maryanne and Elizabeth and Ann Marie. We may need your help with this. Eric wanted me to give you a call.”

Donald took a second as if he was thinking about the whole situation.

“I don’t know,” he finally said, letting out a sigh. “He doesn’t recognize you. Maybe you should just let him die and move down to Florida.”

Wait! What did he just say? That my son doesn’t recognize me? That I should just let him die?

Did he really just say that? That I should let my son die . . . so I could move down to Florida?

I’m usually pretty good at getting my head around things that other people say, even when I don’t agree with them. But this was a tough one. This was my son.

Maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised to hear Donald say that. It wasn’t far off from what he’d said that day in the Oval Office after our meeting with the advocates. Only that time, it was other people’s children who should die. This time, it was my son.

I didn’t want to argue with him. I knew there was no point in that, not at the same time I was calling for his help. I tried to keep my cool.

“No, Donald,” I said. “He does recognize me.”

Donald’s comment was appalling. It hurt to hear him say that. But it also explained why Lisa and I felt so strongly about advocating for our son and why we wanted to help other people understand what it was like to raise a child like William. A lot of people just don’t know.

People with these disabilities are perceived as less than in so many ways. That attitude is everywhere, even at the highest levels of policy and politics.

William deserves a life just like anyone else, and to that end, I knew I had to advocate for him in every way possible. I might never change Donald’s mind or change the mind of anyone who lacked love and compassion for those whose voices couldn’t be heard and whose lives were fully dependent on others. But I knew what I could do. I could offer my voice, my experience, and my strength to push forward for those who needed it.

The barriers are everywhere , even in communities that are generally supportive, like ours. There are still doorways that can’t accommodate wheelchairs. It is still hard to find meaningful day programs that foster independence with learning, socialization, and assistive technology. The whole narrative still needs to change.

I knew that acceptance and tolerance would only come with public education and awareness. Donald might never understand this, but at least he had been open to our advocating through the White House. That was something. If we couldn’t change his feelings about William, that was his loss. He would never feel the love and connection that William offered us daily.

(Editor’s note: TIME reached out to former President Trump for a response to the description of events in this piece and did not receive a reply.)

Copyright © 2024 by Frederick Crist Trump III. From the forthcoming book ALL IN THE FAMILY: The Trumps and How We Got This Way by Fred Trump, to be published by Gallery Books, an Imprint of Simon & Schuster, LLC. Printed by permission.

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What this handout is about

Used effectively, quotations can provide important pieces of evidence and lend fresh voices and perspectives to your narrative. Used ineffectively, however, quotations can clutter your text and interrupt the flow of your argument. This handout will help you decide when and how to quote like a pro.

When should I quote?

Use quotations at strategically selected moments. You have probably been told by teachers to provide as much evidence as possible in support of your thesis. But packing your paper with quotations will not necessarily strengthen your argument. The majority of your paper should still be your original ideas in your own words (after all, it’s your paper). And quotations are only one type of evidence: well-balanced papers may also make use of paraphrases, data, and statistics. The types of evidence you use will depend in part on the conventions of the discipline or audience for which you are writing. For example, papers analyzing literature may rely heavily on direct quotations of the text, while papers in the social sciences may have more paraphrasing, data, and statistics than quotations.

Discussing specific arguments or ideas

Sometimes, in order to have a clear, accurate discussion of the ideas of others, you need to quote those ideas word for word. Suppose you want to challenge the following statement made by John Doe, a well-known historian:

“At the beginning of World War Two, almost all Americans assumed the war would end quickly.”

If it is especially important that you formulate a counterargument to this claim, then you might wish to quote the part of the statement that you find questionable and establish a dialogue between yourself and John Doe:

Historian John Doe has argued that in 1941 “almost all Americans assumed the war would end quickly” (Doe 223). Yet during the first six months of U.S. involvement, the wives and mothers of soldiers often noted in their diaries their fear that the war would drag on for years.

Giving added emphasis to a particularly authoritative source on your topic.

There will be times when you want to highlight the words of a particularly important and authoritative source on your topic. For example, suppose you were writing an essay about the differences between the lives of male and female slaves in the U.S. South. One of your most provocative sources is a narrative written by a former slave, Harriet Jacobs. It would then be appropriate to quote some of Jacobs’s words:

Harriet Jacobs, a former slave from North Carolina, published an autobiographical slave narrative in 1861. She exposed the hardships of both male and female slaves but ultimately concluded that “slavery is terrible for men; but it is far more terrible for women.”

In this particular example, Jacobs is providing a crucial first-hand perspective on slavery. Thus, her words deserve more exposure than a paraphrase could provide.

Jacobs is quoted in Harriet A. Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, ed. Jean Fagan Yellin (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1987).

Analyzing how others use language.

This scenario is probably most common in literature and linguistics courses, but you might also find yourself writing about the use of language in history and social science classes. If the use of language is your primary topic, then you will obviously need to quote users of that language.

Examples of topics that might require the frequent use of quotations include:

Southern colloquial expressions in William Faulkner’s Light in August

Ms. and the creation of a language of female empowerment

A comparison of three British poets and their use of rhyme

Spicing up your prose.

In order to lend variety to your prose, you may wish to quote a source with particularly vivid language. All quotations, however, must closely relate to your topic and arguments. Do not insert a quotation solely for its literary merits.

One example of a quotation that adds flair:

President Calvin Coolidge’s tendency to fall asleep became legendary. As H. L. Mencken commented in the American Mercury in 1933, “Nero fiddled, but Coolidge only snored.”

How do I set up and follow up a quotation?

Once you’ve carefully selected the quotations that you want to use, your next job is to weave those quotations into your text. The words that precede and follow a quotation are just as important as the quotation itself. You can think of each quote as the filling in a sandwich: it may be tasty on its own, but it’s messy to eat without some bread on either side of it. Your words can serve as the “bread” that helps readers digest each quote easily. Below are four guidelines for setting up and following up quotations.

In illustrating these four steps, we’ll use as our example, Franklin Roosevelt’s famous quotation, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”

1. Provide context for each quotation.

Do not rely on quotations to tell your story for you. It is your responsibility to provide your reader with context for the quotation. The context should set the basic scene for when, possibly where, and under what circumstances the quotation was spoken or written. So, in providing context for our above example, you might write:

When Franklin Roosevelt gave his inaugural speech on March 4, 1933, he addressed a nation weakened and demoralized by economic depression.

2. Attribute each quotation to its source.

Tell your reader who is speaking. Here is a good test: try reading your text aloud. Could your reader determine without looking at your paper where your quotations begin? If not, you need to attribute the quote more noticeably.

Avoid getting into the “they said” attribution rut! There are many other ways to attribute quotes besides this construction. Here are a few alternative verbs, usually followed by “that”:

Different reporting verbs are preferred by different disciplines, so pay special attention to these in your disciplinary reading. If you’re unfamiliar with the meanings of any of these words or others you find in your reading, consult a dictionary before using them.

3. Explain the significance of the quotation.

Once you’ve inserted your quotation, along with its context and attribution, don’t stop! Your reader still needs your assessment of why the quotation holds significance for your paper. Using our Roosevelt example, if you were writing a paper on the first one-hundred days of FDR’s administration, you might follow the quotation by linking it to that topic:

With that message of hope and confidence, the new president set the stage for his next one-hundred days in office and helped restore the faith of the American people in their government.

4. Provide a citation for the quotation.

All quotations, just like all paraphrases, require a formal citation. For more details about particular citation formats, see the UNC Libraries citation tutorial . In general, you should remember one rule of thumb: Place the parenthetical reference or footnote/endnote number after—not within—the closed quotation mark.

Roosevelt declared, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself” (Roosevelt, Public Papers, 11).

Roosevelt declared, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”1

How do I embed a quotation into a sentence?

In general, avoid leaving quotes as sentences unto themselves. Even if you have provided some context for the quote, a quote standing alone can disrupt your flow.  Take a look at this example:

Hamlet denies Rosencrantz’s claim that thwarted ambition caused his depression. “I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space” (Hamlet 2.2).

Standing by itself, the quote’s connection to the preceding sentence is unclear. There are several ways to incorporate a quote more smoothly:

Lead into the quote with a colon.

Hamlet denies Rosencrantz’s claim that thwarted ambition caused his depression: “I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space” (Hamlet 2.2).

The colon announces that a quote will follow to provide evidence for the sentence’s claim.

Introduce or conclude the quote by attributing it to the speaker. If your attribution precedes the quote, you will need to use a comma after the verb.

Hamlet denies Rosencrantz’s claim that thwarted ambition caused his depression. He states, “I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space” (Hamlet 2.2).

When faced with a twelve-foot mountain troll, Ron gathers his courage, shouting, “Wingardium Leviosa!” (Rowling, p. 176).

The Pirate King sees an element of regality in their impoverished and dishonest life. “It is, it is a glorious thing/To be a pirate king,” he declares (Pirates of Penzance, 1983).

Interrupt the quote with an attribution to the speaker. Again, you will need to use a comma after the verb, as well as a comma leading into the attribution.

“There is nothing either good or bad,” Hamlet argues, “but thinking makes it so” (Hamlet 2.2).

“And death shall be no more,” Donne writes, “Death thou shalt die” (“Death, Be Not Proud,” l. 14).

Dividing the quote may highlight a particular nuance of the quote’s meaning. In the first example, the division calls attention to the two parts of Hamlet’s claim. The first phrase states that nothing is inherently good or bad; the second phrase suggests that our perspective causes things to become good or bad. In the second example, the isolation of “Death thou shalt die” at the end of the sentence draws a reader’s attention to that phrase in particular. As you decide whether or not you want to break up a quote, you should consider the shift in emphasis that the division might create.

Use the words of the quote grammatically within your own sentence.

When Hamlet tells Rosencrantz that he “could be bounded in a nutshell and count [him]self a king of infinite space” (Hamlet 2.2), he implies that thwarted ambition did not cause his depression.

Ultimately, death holds no power over Donne since in the afterlife, “death shall be no more” (“Death, Be Not Proud,” l. 14).

Note that when you use “that” after the verb that introduces the quote, you no longer need a comma.

The Pirate King argues that “it is, it is a glorious thing/to be a pirate king” (Pirates of Penzance, 1983).

How much should I quote?

As few words as possible. Remember, your paper should primarily contain your own words, so quote only the most pithy and memorable parts of sources. Here are guidelines for selecting quoted material judiciously:

Excerpt fragments.

Sometimes, you should quote short fragments, rather than whole sentences. Suppose you interviewed Jane Doe about her reaction to John F. Kennedy’s assassination. She commented:

“I couldn’t believe it. It was just unreal and so sad. It was just unbelievable. I had never experienced such denial. I don’t know why I felt so strongly. Perhaps it was because JFK was more to me than a president. He represented the hopes of young people everywhere.”

You could quote all of Jane’s comments, but her first three sentences are fairly redundant. You might instead want to quote Jane when she arrives at the ultimate reason for her strong emotions:

Jane Doe grappled with grief and disbelief. She had viewed JFK, not just as a national figurehead, but as someone who “represented the hopes of young people everywhere.”

Excerpt those fragments carefully!

Quoting the words of others carries a big responsibility. Misquoting misrepresents the ideas of others. Here’s a classic example of a misquote:

John Adams has often been quoted as having said: “This would be the best of all possible worlds if there were no religion in it.”

John Adams did, in fact, write the above words. But if you see those words in context, the meaning changes entirely. Here’s the rest of the quotation:

Twenty times, in the course of my late reading, have I been on the point of breaking out, ‘this would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it!!!!’ But in this exclamation, I should have been as fanatical as Bryant or Cleverly. Without religion, this world would be something not fit to be mentioned in public company—I mean hell.

As you can see from this example, context matters!

This example is from Paul F. Boller, Jr. and John George, They Never Said It: A Book of Fake Quotes, Misquotes, and Misleading Attributions (Oxford University Press, 1989).

Use block quotations sparingly.

There may be times when you need to quote long passages. However, you should use block quotations only when you fear that omitting any words will destroy the integrity of the passage. If that passage exceeds four lines (some sources say five), then set it off as a block quotation.

Be sure you are handling block quotes correctly in papers for different academic disciplines–check the index of the citation style guide you are using. Here are a few general tips for setting off your block quotations:

• Set up a block quotation with your own words followed by a colon.
• Indent. You normally indent 4-5 spaces for the start of a paragraph. When setting up a block quotation, indent the entire paragraph once from the left-hand margin.
• Single space or double space within the block quotation, depending on the style guidelines of your discipline (MLA, CSE, APA, Chicago, etc.).
• Do not use quotation marks at the beginning or end of the block quote—the indentation is what indicates that it’s a quote.
• Place parenthetical citation according to your style guide (usually after the period following the last sentence of the quote).
• Follow up a block quotation with your own words.

So, using the above example from John Adams, here’s how you might include a block quotation:

After reading several doctrinally rigid tracts, John Adams recalled the zealous ranting of his former teacher, Joseph Cleverly, and minister, Lemuel Bryant. He expressed his ambivalence toward religion in an 1817 letter to Thomas Jefferson:

Adams clearly appreciated religion, even if he often questioned its promotion.

How do I combine quotation marks with other punctuation marks?

It can be confusing when you start combining quotation marks with other punctuation marks. You should consult a style manual for complicated situations, but the following two rules apply to most cases:

Keep periods and commas within quotation marks.

So, for example:

According to Professor Poe, werewolves “represent anxiety about the separation between human and animal,” and werewolf movies often “interrogate those boundaries.”

In the above example, both the comma and period were enclosed in the quotation marks. The main exception to this rule involves the use of internal citations, which always precede the last period of the sentence. For example:

According to Professor Poe, werewolves “represent anxiety about the separation between human and animal,” and werewolf movies often “interrogate those boundaries” (Poe 167).

Note, however, that the period remains inside the quotation marks when your citation style involves superscript footnotes or endnotes. For example:

According to Professor Poe, werewolves “represent anxiety about the separation between human and animal,” and werewolf movies often “interrogate those boundaries.” 2

Place all other punctuation marks (colons, semicolons, exclamation marks, question marks) outside the quotation marks, except when they were part of the original quotation.

Take a look at the following examples:

I couldn’t believe it when my friend passed me a note in the cafe saying the management “started charging $15 per hour for parking”!

The coach yelled, “Run!”

In the first example, the author placed the exclamation point outside the quotation mark because she added it herself to emphasize the outrageous nature of the parking price change. The original note had not included an exclamation mark. In the second example, the exclamation mark remains within the quotation mark because it is indicating the excited tone in which the coach yelled the command. Thus, the exclamation mark is considered to be part of the original quotation.

How do I indicate quotations within quotations?

If you are quoting a passage that contains a quotation, then you use single quotation marks for the internal quotation. Quite rarely, you quote a passage that has a quotation within a quotation. In that rare instance, you would use double quotation marks for the second internal quotation.

Here’s an example of a quotation within a quotation:

In “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” Hans Christian Andersen wrote, “‘But the Emperor has nothing on at all!’ cried a little child.”

Remember to consult your style guide to determine how to properly cite a quote within a quote.

When do I use those three dots ( . . . )?

Whenever you want to leave out material from within a quotation, you need to use an ellipsis, which is a series of three periods, each of which should be preceded and followed by a space. So, an ellipsis in this sentence would look like . . . this. There are a few rules to follow when using ellipses:

Be sure that you don’t fundamentally change the meaning of the quotation by omitting material.

Take a look at the following example:

“The Writing Center is located on the UNC campus and serves the entire UNC community.”

“The Writing Center . . . serves the entire UNC community.”

The reader’s understanding of the Writing Center’s mission to serve the UNC community is not affected by omitting the information about its location.

Do not use ellipses at the beginning or ending of quotations, unless it’s important for the reader to know that the quotation was truncated.

For example, using the above example, you would NOT need an ellipsis in either of these situations:

“The Writing Center is located on the UNC campus . . .”

The Writing Center ” . . . serves the entire UNC community.”

Use punctuation marks in combination with ellipses when removing material from the end of sentences or clauses.

For example, if you take material from the end of a sentence, keep the period in as usual.

“The boys ran to school, forgetting their lunches and books. Even though they were out of breath, they made it on time.”

“The boys ran to school. . . . Even though they were out of breath, they made it on time.”

Likewise, if you excerpt material at the end of clause that ends in a comma, retain the comma.

“The red car came to a screeching halt that was heard by nearby pedestrians, but no one was hurt.”

“The red car came to a screeching halt . . . , but no one was hurt.”

Is it ever okay to insert my own words or change words in a quotation?

Sometimes it is necessary for clarity and flow to alter a word or words within a quotation. You should make such changes rarely. In order to alert your reader to the changes you’ve made, you should always bracket the altered words. Here are a few examples of situations when you might need brackets:

Changing verb tense or pronouns in order to be consistent with the rest of the sentence.

Suppose you were quoting a woman who, when asked about her experiences immigrating to the United States, commented “nobody understood me.” You might write:

Esther Hansen felt that when she came to the United States “nobody understood [her].”

In the above example, you’ve changed “me” to “her” in order to keep the entire passage in third person. However, you could avoid the need for this change by simply rephrasing:

“Nobody understood me,” recalled Danish immigrant Esther Hansen.

Including supplemental information that your reader needs in order to understand the quotation.

For example, if you were quoting someone’s nickname, you might want to let your reader know the full name of that person in brackets.

“The principal of the school told Billy [William Smith] that his contract would be terminated.”

Similarly, if a quotation referenced an event with which the reader might be unfamiliar, you could identify that event in brackets.

“We completely revised our political strategies after the strike [of 1934].”

Indicating the use of nonstandard grammar or spelling.

In rare situations, you may quote from a text that has nonstandard grammar, spelling, or word choice. In such cases, you may want to insert [sic], which means “thus” or “so” in Latin. Using [sic] alerts your reader to the fact that this nonstandard language is not the result of a typo on your part. Always italicize “sic” and enclose it in brackets. There is no need to put a period at the end. Here’s an example of when you might use [sic]:

Twelve-year-old Betsy Smith wrote in her diary, “Father is afraid that he will be guilty of beach [sic] of contract.”

Here [sic] indicates that the original author wrote “beach of contract,” not breach of contract, which is the accepted terminology.

Do not overuse brackets!

For example, it is not necessary to bracket capitalization changes that you make at the beginning of sentences. For example, suppose you were going to use part of this quotation:

“The colors scintillated curiously over a hard carapace, and the beetle’s tiny antennae made gentle waving motions as though saying hello.”

If you wanted to begin a sentence with an excerpt from the middle of this quotation, there would be no need to bracket your capitalization changes.

“The beetle’s tiny antennae made gentle waving motions as though saying hello,” said Dr. Grace Farley, remembering a defining moment on her journey to becoming an entomologist.

Not: “[T]he beetle’s tiny antennae made gentle waving motions as though saying hello,” said Dr. Grace Farley, remembering a defining moment on her journey to becoming an entomologist.

Works consulted

We consulted these works while writing this handout. This is not a comprehensive list of resources on the handout’s topic, and we encourage you to do your own research to find additional publications. Please do not use this list as a model for the format of your own reference list, as it may not match the citation style you are using. For guidance on formatting citations, please see the UNC Libraries citation tutorial . We revise these tips periodically and welcome feedback.

Barzun, Jacques, and Henry F. Graff. 2012. The Modern Researcher , 6th ed. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.

Booth, Wayne C., Gregory G. Colomb, Joseph M. Williams, Joseph Bizup, and William T. FitzGerald. 2016. The Craft of Research , 4th ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Gibaldi, Joseph. 2009. MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers , 7th ed. New York: The Modern Language Association of America.

Turabian, Kate. 2018. A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, Dissertations , 9th ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

You may reproduce it for non-commercial use if you use the entire handout and attribute the source: The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

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Quote Explanation Generator + Guide & Tips

• 👁️‍🗨️ Intro to Generator
• 👨‍🏫 Benefits of Quotations
• ✨ How to Perform a Quote Analysis

🔎 Quotation Types & Examples

• 🏆 Examples of Quote Analysis

🔗 References

👁️‍🗨️ intro to our quote explanation generator.

A quotation is a direct repetition of someone else's words, enclosed within quotation marks, and attributed to the original author. You can use it to provide evidence, support arguments , or add authority to writing or speech.

Quote analysis involves examining a quotation's context , intended meaning , and implications . You should go beyond surface-level understanding, exploring the underlying ideas, emotions, and significance conveyed by the selected words.

Quotations hold the power to inspire, inform, and challenge us. Thus, we created a quote explanation generator – the ultimate tool for unraveling the depths of any saying! Whether you picked a random quote that sparked your curiosity or you have an analysis assignment, it’ll provide insightful explanations for each phrase.

3 Key Reasons to Try Our Quotation Explanation Generator

Sometimes, quotes have double meanings or a thick layer of context that’s difficult to get through. Our quote explanation generator lets you get to the heart of the matter without spending hours on this process. Several factors make our app a valuable tool in your academic pursuits:

👨‍🏫 7 Benefits of Quotations in Your Writing

To master the art of writing papers, you need a lot of practice. Producing volumes of bland text isn’t enough. Your work should be interesting to follow, and quotes are one of the best tools to improve the quality of your written assignments.

• Better persuasion . Any piece should ultimately get the reader to accept your argument. You can achieve this goal by adding the most impactful quotes in the body of the text.
• Connect text and sources . Sometimes your writing doesn’t connect data from cited sources to the ideas discussed in its paragraphs. A good quote or two can bridge this gap.
• Enhance your writing . Quotes can make your writing more subtle and creative. This way, the text becomes more interesting and less monotonous.
• Larger context . Adding quotes lets you better evaluate and discuss the topic . They expand on the context and give essential details to your piece.
• More credibility . Having quotes in your paper makes it more credible. It helps readers see that your arguments aren’t based merely on your opinions.
• A touch of sophistication . Quotes are a great way to make your paper more sophisticated. It will lead to higher grades from your professors.
• Stronger arguments . Adding quotations lets you better introduce arguments and analyze ideas.

✨ How to Perform a Good Quote Analysis

Finding the core meaning of sayings can enrich your written assignment. In this segment, we’ve prepared a step-by-step guide to analyze quotes and uncover their potential. These guidelines will help you evaluate any quotes you can come across.

• Step 1 . Select a suitable quotation. Add the ones relevant to your paper’s subject. It should relate to either a person or an argument. Better use short citations to save time on analysis.
• Step 2 . Identify literary devices. Take a look at the choice of words in the quote. Pay attention to personifications, similes, metaphors, rhythm, alterations, and other devices . It helps better understand what the author tried to say.
• Step 3 . Establish the effect of the quote. Assess how the literary devices and additional techniques affect the quote. Experiment with different interpretations and consider which one is the most convincing.
• Step 4 . Find out the author’s intent behind the quote. Additionally, consider why the author chose to phrase their words in a certain way. For example, state if the quote has multiple meanings to keep it ambiguous deliberately.

During your detailed research , you might come across different kinds of quotes. There are three common ways of formatting a quotation in a piece of writing. We’ve decided to make a short guide that helps differentiate between them:

Integrating Quotations into Sentences

Knowing how to correctly incorporate quotes into your text is an essential skill that helps improve the value of your work. This section contains practical tips that make this process easier and enables you to create more credible writing.

• Introduce the quote with a colon and a complete sentence. It’s the most common use of a quotation that involves marks at the start and end of a quote. For example, in the words of Shakespeare: “ We know what we are, but know not what we may be .”
• Provide an explanatory or introductory phrase separate from the quotation with a comma. Here, you give a bit of context to explain a quote better. In The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde writes, “ Nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing .”
• Make the quote a part of your sentence without additional punctuation . In this instance, the quotation becomes a part of your writing. For example, Dostoevsky argues that “ conscience without God is a horror. It can get lost to the most immoral .”
• Use several words from the quote in your sentence. It works the same as the previous example, although with smaller bits of the quotation. Duma’s advice to “ wait and hope ” runs throughout The Count of Monte Cristo .

🏆 Great Example of Quote Analysis

Here we've prepared an analysis of Les Brown's inspirational quote, “Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you will land among the stars.” This sample can inspire you to write your own essay on quote analysis; take advantage of our generator and tips!

We did our best to provide a comprehensive guide on quote analysis. After you check out our specialized tool, please take a look at our FAQ section. Lastly, if you need help analyzing other types of text, try our rhetorical analyzer .

❓ Explain the Quote Generator – FAQ

Updated: Oct 25th, 2023

• Suggested Ways to Introduce Quotations. – Columbia College
• Integrating a Quotation into an Essay. – Kelly Johnson, Ursinus College
• 5 Steps to Quote Analysis. – Luna Laliberte, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
• Quotation Analysis for Source Use. – Amanda Hardman, Red Rocks Community College, RRCC
• Working with Quotations. – Empire State University
• Quote Integration. – University of Nevada, Reno
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This page contains our free quote explainer generator. Discover the hidden meaning of famous sayings. This tool will also be helpful if you need to uncover literary devices. As a bonus, we have compiled a guide about quotations and their use in academic papers.

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MLA Works Cited: Electronic Sources (Web Publications)

Welcome to the Purdue OWL

This page is brought to you by the OWL at Purdue University. When printing this page, you must include the entire legal notice.

Copyright ©1995-2018 by The Writing Lab & The OWL at Purdue and Purdue University. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, reproduced, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without permission. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our terms and conditions of fair use.

The MLA Handbook highlights principles over prescriptive practices. Essentially, a writer will need to take note of primary elements in every source, such as author, title, etc. and then assort them in a general format. Thus, by using this methodology, a writer will be able to cite any source regardless of whether it’s included in this list.

However, this guide will highlight a few concerns when citing digital sources in MLA style.

Best Practices for Managing Online Sources

Because online information can change or disappear, it is always a good idea to keep personal copies of important electronic information whenever possible. Downloading or even printing key documents ensures you have a stable backup. You can also use the Bookmark function in your web browser in order to build an easy-to-access reference for all of your project's sources (though this will not help you if the information is changed or deleted).

It is also wise to keep a record of when you first consult with each online source. MLA uses the phrase, “Accessed” to denote which date you accessed the web page when available or necessary. It is not required to do so, but it is encouraged (especially when there is no copyright date listed on a website).

Important Note on the Use of URLs in MLA

Include a URL or web address to help readers locate your sources. Because web addresses are not static (i.e., they change often) and because documents sometimes appear in multiple places on the web (e.g., on multiple databases), MLA encourages the use of citing containers such as Youtube, JSTOR, Spotify, or Netflix in order to easily access and verify sources. However, MLA only requires the www. address, so eliminate all https:// when citing URLs.

Many scholarly journal articles found in databases include a DOI (digital object identifier). If a DOI is available, cite the DOI number instead of the URL.

Online newspapers and magazines sometimes include a “permalink,” which is a shortened, stable version of a URL. Look for a “share” or “cite this” button to see if a source includes a permalink. If you can find a permalink, use that instead of a URL.

Abbreviations Commonly Used with Electronic Sources

If page numbers are not available, use par. or pars. to denote paragraph numbers. Use these in place of the p. or pp. abbreviation. Par. would be used for a single paragraph, while pars. would be used for a span of two or more paragraphs.

Basic Style for Citations of Electronic Sources (Including Online Databases)

Here are some common features you should try to find before citing electronic sources in MLA style. Not every web page will provide all of the following information. However, collect as much of the following information as possible:

• Author and/or editor names (if available); last names first.
• "Article name in quotation marks."
• Title of the website, project, or book in italics.
• Any version numbers available, including editions (ed.), revisions, posting dates, volumes (vol.), or issue numbers (no.).
• Publisher information, including the publisher name and publishing date.
• Take note of any page numbers (p. or pp.) or paragraph numbers (par. or pars.).
• DOI (if available, precede it with "https://doi.org/"), otherwise a URL (without the https://) or permalink.
• Date you accessed the material (Date Accessed). While not required, saving this information it is highly recommended, especially when dealing with pages that change frequently or do not have a visible copyright date.

Use the following format:

Author. "Title." Title of container (self contained if book) , Other contributors (translators or editors), Version (edition), Number (vol. and/or no.), Publisher, Publication Date, Location (pages, paragraphs and/or URL, DOI or permalink). 2 nd container’s title , Other contributors, Version, Number, Publisher, Publication date, Location, Date of Access (if applicable).

Citing an Entire Web Site

When citing an entire website, follow the same format as listed above, but include a compiler name if no single author is available.

Author, or compiler name (if available). Name of Site. Version number (if available), Name of institution/organization affiliated with the site (sponsor or publisher), date of resource creation (if available), DOI (preferred), otherwise include a URL or permalink. Date of access (if applicable).

Editor, author, or compiler name (if available). Name of Site . Version number, Name of institution/organization affiliated with the site (sponsor or publisher), date of resource creation (if available), URL, DOI or permalink. Date of access (if applicable).

The Purdue OWL Family of Sites . The Writing Lab and OWL at Purdue and Purdue U, 2008, owl.english.purdue.edu/owl. Accessed 23 Apr. 2008.

Felluga, Dino. Guide to Literary and Critical Theory . Purdue U, 28 Nov. 2003, www.cla.purdue.edu/english/theory/. Accessed 10 May 2006.

Course or Department Websites

Give the instructor name. Then list the title of the course (or the school catalog designation for the course) in italics. Give appropriate department and school names as well, following the course title.

Felluga, Dino. Survey of the Literature of England . Purdue U, Aug. 2006, web.ics.purdue.edu/~felluga/241/241/Home.html. Accessed 31 May 2007.

English Department . Purdue U, 20 Apr. 2009, www.cla.purdue.edu/english/. Accessed 31 May 2015.

A Page on a Web Site

For an individual page on a Web site, list the author or alias if known, followed by an indication of the specific page or article being referenced. Usually, the title of the page or article appears in a header at the top of the page. Follow this with the information covered above for entire Web sites. If the publisher is the same as the website name, only list it once.

Lundman, Susan. “How to Make Vegetarian Chili.”  eHow , www.ehow.com/how_10727_make-vegetarian-chili.html. Accessed 6 July 2015.

“ Athlete's Foot - Topic Overview. ”   WebMD , 25 Sept. 2014, www.webmd.com/skin-problems-and-treatments/tc/athletes-foot-topic-overview.

Citations for e-books closely resemble those for physical books. Simply indicate that the book in question is an e-book by putting the term "e-book" in the "version" slot of the MLA template (i.e., after the author, the title of the source, the title of the container, and the names of any other contributors).

Silva, Paul J.  How to Write a Lot: A Practical Guide to Productive Academic Writing. E-book, American Psychological Association, 2007.

If the e-book is formatted for a specific reader device or service, you can indicate this by treating this information the same way you would treat a physical book's edition number. Often, this will mean replacing "e-book" with "[App/Service] ed."

Machiavelli, Niccolo.  The Prince , translated by W. K. Marriott, Kindle ed., Library of Alexandria, 2018.

Note:  The MLA considers the term "e-book" to refer to publications formatted specifically for reading with an e-book reader device (e.g., a Kindle) or a corresponding web application. These e-books will not have URLs or DOIs. If you are citing book content from an ordinary webpage with a URL, use the "A Page on a Web Site" format above.

An Image (Including a Painting, Sculpture, or Photograph)

Provide the artist's name, the work of art italicized, the date of creation, the institution and city where the work is housed. Follow this initial entry with the name of the Website in italics, and the date of access.

Goya, Francisco. The Family of Charles IV . 1800. Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid. Museo Nacional del Prado , www.museodelprado.es/en/the-collection/art-work/the-family-of-carlos-iv/f47898fc-aa1c-48f6-a779-71759e417e74. Accessed 22 May 2006.

Klee, Paul. Twittering Machine . 1922. Museum of Modern Art, New York. The Artchive , www.artchive.com/artchive/K/klee/twittering_machine.jpg.html. Accessed May 2006.

If the work cited is available on the web only, then provide the name of the artist, the title of the work, and then follow the citation format for a website. If the work is posted via a username, use that username for the author.

Adams, Clifton R. “People Relax Beside a Swimming Pool at a Country Estate Near Phoenix, Arizona, 1928.” Found, National Geographic Creative, 2 June 2016, natgeofound.tumblr.com/.

An Article in a Web Magazine

Provide the author name, article name in quotation marks, title of the web magazine in italics, publisher name, publication date, URL, and the date of access.

Bernstein, Mark. “ 10 Tips on Writing the Living Web. ”   A List Apart: For People Who Make Websites , 16 Aug. 2002, alistapart.com/article/writeliving. Accessed 4 May 2009.

An Article in an Online Scholarly Journal

For all online scholarly journals, provide the author(s) name(s), the name of the article in quotation marks, the title of the publication in italics, all volume and issue numbers, and the year of publication. Include a DOI if available, otherwise provide a URL or permalink to help readers locate the source.

Article in an Online-only Scholarly Journal

MLA requires a page range for articles that appear in Scholarly Journals. If the journal you are citing appears exclusively in an online format (i.e. there is no corresponding print publication) that does not make use of page numbers, indicate the URL or other location information.

Dolby, Nadine. “Research in Youth Culture and Policy: Current Conditions and Future Directions.” Social Work and Society: The International Online-Only Journal, vol. 6, no. 2, 2008, www.socwork.net/sws/article/view/60/362. Accessed 20 May 2009.

Article in an Online Scholarly Journal That Also Appears in Print

Cite articles in online scholarly journals that also appear in print as you would a scholarly journal in print, including the page range of the article . Provide the URL and the date of access.

Wheelis, Mark. “ Investigating Disease Outbreaks Under a Protocol to the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention. ”   Emerging Infectious Diseases , vol. 6, no. 6, 2000, pp. 595-600, wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/6/6/00-0607_article. Accessed 8 Feb. 2009.

An Article from an Online Database (or Other Electronic Subscription Service)

Cite online databases (e.g. LexisNexis, ProQuest, JSTOR, ScienceDirect) and other subscription services as containers. Thus, provide the title of the database italicized before the DOI or URL. If a DOI is not provided, use the URL instead. Provide the date of access if you wish.

Alonso, Alvaro, and Julio A. Camargo. “ Toxicity of Nitrite to Three Species of Freshwater Invertebrates. ”   Environmental Toxicology, vol. 21, no. 1, 3 Feb. 2006, pp. 90-94. Wiley Online Library , https://doi.org/10.1002/tox.20155. Accessed 26 May 2009.

Langhamer, Claire. “Love and Courtship in Mid-Twentieth-Century England.” Historical Journal, vol. 50, no. 1, 2007, pp. 173-96. ProQuest , https://doi.org/10.1017/S0018246X06005966. Accessed 27 May 2009.

E-mail (including E-mail Interviews)

Give the author of the message, followed by the subject line in quotation marks. State to whom the message was sent with the phrase, “Received by” and the recipient’s name. Include the date the message was sent. Use standard capitalization.

Kunka, Andrew. “ Re: Modernist Literature. ”  Received by John Watts, 15 Nov. 2000.

Neyhart, David. “ Re: Online Tutoring. ” Received by Joe Barbato, 1 Dec. 2016.

A Listserv, Discussion Group, or Blog Posting

Cite web postings as you would a standard web entry. Provide the author of the work, the title of the posting in quotation marks, the web site name in italics, the publisher, and the posting date. Follow with the date of access. Include screen names as author names when author name is not known. If both names are known, place the author’s name in brackets.

Author or compiler name (if available). “Posting Title.” Name of Site , Version number (if available), Name of institution/organization affiliated with the site (sponsor or publisher), URL. Date of access.

Salmar1515 [Sal Hernandez]. “Re: Best Strategy: Fenced Pastures vs. Max Number of Rooms?” BoardGameGeek , 29 Sept. 2008, boardgamegeek.com/thread/343929/best-strategy-fenced-pastures-vs-max-number-rooms. Accessed 5 Apr. 2009.

Begin with the user's Twitter handle in place of the author’s name. Next, place the tweet in its entirety in quotations, inserting a period after the tweet within the quotations. Include the date and time of posting, using the reader's time zone; separate the date and time with a comma and end with a period. Include the date accessed if you deem necessary.

@tombrokaw. “ SC demonstrated why all the debates are the engines of this campaign. ”   Twitter, 22 Jan. 2012, 3:06 a.m., twitter.com/tombrokaw/status/160996868971704320.

@PurdueWLab. “ Spring break is around the corner, and all our locations will be open next week. ”   Twitter , 5 Mar. 2012, 12:58 p.m., twitter.com/PurdueWLab/status/176728308736737282.

A YouTube Video

Video and audio sources need to be documented using the same basic guidelines for citing print sources in MLA style. Include as much descriptive information as necessary to help readers understand the type and nature of the source you are citing. If the author’s name is the same as the uploader, only cite the author once. If the author is different from the uploader, cite the author’s name before the title.

McGonigal, Jane. “Gaming and Productivity.” YouTube , uploaded by Big Think, 3 July 2012, www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkdzy9bWW3E.

“8 Hot Dog Gadgets put to the Test.” YouTube, uploaded by Crazy Russian Hacker, 6 June 2016, www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBlpjSEtELs.

A Comment on a Website or Article

List the username as the author. Use the phrase, Comment on, before the title. Use quotation marks around the article title. Name the publisher, date, time (listed on near the comment), and the URL.

Not Omniscient Enough. Comment on “ Flight Attendant Tells Passenger to ‘Shut Up’ After Argument Over Pasta. ”  ABC News, 9 Jun 2016, 4:00 p.m., abcnews.go.com/US/flight-attendant-tells-passenger-shut-argument-pasta/story?id=39704050.

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Why are articles so important to research?

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Journal articles are the academic's stock in trade, t he basic means of communicating research findings to an audience of one’s peers. That holds true across the disciplinary spectrum, so no matter where you land as a concentrator, you can expect to rely on them heavily. 

Regardless of the discipline, moreover,  journal articles perform an important knowledge-updating function .

Textbooks and handbooks and manuals will have a secondary function for chemists and physicists and biologists, of course. But in the sciences, articles are the standard and  preferred publication form. 

In the social sciences and humanities , where knowledge develops a little less rapidly or is driven less by issues of time-sensitivity , journal articles and books are more often used together.

Not all important and influential ideas warrant book-length studies, and some inquiry is just better suited to the size and scope and concentrated discussion that the article format offers.

Journal articles sometimes just present the most  appropriate  solution for communicating findings or making a convincing argument.  A 20-page article may perfectly fit a researcher's needs.  Sustaining that argument for 200 pages might be unnecessary -- or impossible.

The quality of a research article and the legitimacy of its findings are verified by other scholars, prior to publication, through a rigorous evaluation method called peer-review . This seal of approval by other scholars doesn't mean that an article is the best, or truest, or last word on a topic. If that were the case, research on lots of things would cease. Peer review simply means other experts believe the methods, the evidence, the conclusions of an article have met important standards of legitimacy, reliability, and intellectual honesty.

Searching the journal literature is part of being a responsible researcher at any level: professor, grad student, concentrator, first-year. Knowing why academic articles matter will help you make good decisions about what you find -- and what you choose to rely on in your work.

Think of journal articles as the way you tap into the ongoing scholarly conversation , as a way of testing the currency of  a finding, analysis, or argumentative position, and a way of bolstering the authority (or plausibility) of explanations you'll offer in the papers and projects you'll complete at Harvard. 

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Election Updates: Governors Fire Up Harris Supporters in Pennsylvania

Governors Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania and Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, leaders of two so-called blue wall states, made spirited cases for Vice President Kamala Harris and assailed former President Donald J. Trump.

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Jonathan Weisman

Here’s the latest on a busy campaign week.

Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, a serious contender to be Vice President Kamala Harris’s running mate in November, called the likely Democratic nominee “damned ready” to face former President Donald J. Trump during a rally outside Philadelphia.

Speaking in Ambler, Pa., alongside Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, Mr. Shapiro made a spirited case for Ms. Harris, less than 100 days until Election Day, and accused Mr. Trump of bad-mouthing his country. “This is the greatest country on the face of the earth,” he said. “Let’s start acting like it.”

One of the other Democrats often mentioned as a vice-presidential contender, Gov. Roy Cooper of North Carolina , is said to have withdrawn his name from the field.

Here’s what to know.

A V.P. candidate is out: Mr. Cooper, who once led the Democratic Governors Association, was believed to be among the half-dozen top candidates to join Ms. Harris’s ticket.

A rally in Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania is a key part of the so-called blue wall — along with Michigan and Wisconsin — that Mr. Trump broke through in 2016, then President Biden won back four years later, and the two governors went hard at Mr. Trump. Ms. Whitmer noted that Ms. Harris prosecuted sex offenders as California’s attorney general, “and it makes me think maybe that’s why Donald Trump’s so scared of her.” Mr. Shapiro also sought to remind the crowd about the “chaos” of the Trump presidency in what was an audition of sorts for the No. 2 spot on the ticket. Here’s a look at possible contenders.

The week ahead: On Tuesday, Ms. Harris will campaign in Atlanta. Mr. Biden turned Georgia blue in 2020, but his poll numbers had prompted many Democrats to all but write it off. Ms. Harris, however, could make a renewed push there. She will be looking to maintain the momentum she built in the first week of her campaign — what Steve Sisolak, the former Democratic governor of Nevada, described as a “honeymoon phase” — during which she raised $200 million .

Trump and Vance on the trail: Mr. Trump will rally in Harrisburg, Pa., on Wednesday, and his running mate, Senator JD Vance of Ohio, will appear at a series of events in Nevada and Arizona, two swing states with large Latino populations. Mr. Vance is likely to continue to hammer Ms. Harris on immigration , an attack Republicans see as effective because Mr. Biden appointed her to address the “root causes” of migration from Central American countries.

Harris backs Supreme Court reform: Ms. Harris issued a statement of support a few hours after Mr. Biden pitched a series of changes in an opinion piece for The Washington Post. Mr. Biden proposed 18-year term limits and a binding code of conduct for justices, and called for a constitutional amendment declaring that presidents don’t have immunity for crimes committed in office — which would repudiate the justices’ recent ruling otherwise. Read about Mr. Biden’s proposal.

A messaging battle: As Republicans resurface policy positions Ms. Harris took as a 2020 presidential candidate to make the argument that she is too progressive, Mr. Vance has been pummeled over his own past comments — including his mockery of “childless cat ladies,” his assertion that childless Americans should pay higher taxes and his correspondence with a former law school classmate, in which he expressed political views that differ sharply from his positions today and said, “I hate the police.”

Shane Goldmacher contributed reporting.

Michael Gold

Donald Trump, who has been trying to draw Black voters away from Democrats in light of polls showing the Biden administration losing their support, just announced he will take part in a Q&A with political journalists on Wednesday at the National Association of Black Journalists convention in Chicago.

Rebecca Davis O’Brien

A “White Dudes for Harris” video hangout tonight featured the following pairing: The Dude — the actor Jeff Bridges — spoke enthusiastically about Kamala Harris, and he was immediately followed by the transportation secretary and vice-presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg.

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Chris Cameron

After advisers to Donald Trump suggested that the former president would not commit to another debate , Trump said in an interview on Fox News that he would “probably end up” debating Vice President Kamala Harris, suggesting that it “should take place before the votes start being cast.” That would place the debate at Sept. 15 at the latest — with early voting starting in Pennsylvania the next day . Trump had previously agreed to a debate on Sept. 10, hosted by ABC News, but he has recently suggested that the debate be moved to Fox News .

Nicholas Nehamas

Gov. Roy Cooper of North Carolina said he would not seek to become Vice President Kamala Harris’s running mate, confirming a report today by The New York Times . “This just wasn’t the right time for North Carolina and for me to potentially be on a national ticket,” Cooper posted online.

pic.twitter.com/vBmxvUhuFu — Roy Cooper (@RoyCooperNC) July 30, 2024

The hip-hop star Megan Thee Stallion will join Vice President Kamala Harris at a campaign rally in Atlanta tomorrow, another sign that the Harris campaign is better able to connect with younger voters than when President Biden led the Democratic ticket. Billboard first reported the news.

Maggie Astor

NGP VAN, a company that Democrats from federal races down through local races routinely rely on for digital fund-raising and voter outreach tools, said its clients cumulatively saw a 548 percent increase in fund-raising in the week after President Biden withdrew from the race.

Theodore Schleifer

Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania is going to the Hamptons this weekend. He’ll headline a fund-raiser on Saturday for the Next 50, a youth-organizing group, according to an invitation I’ve seen. Indeed, it is the place to raise money this time of year — Trump has a fund-raiser in the Hamptons the day before.

Reporting from Ambler, Pa.

Shapiro and Whitmer tell Harris supporters that Trump is ‘so scared of her.’

Governors Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania and Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan rallied supporters behind Vice President Kamala Harris on Monday in the critical suburbs of Philadelphia, making a boisterous case that the likely Democratic nominee was going to take the fight to former President Donald J. Trump in the next 100 days — and win.

“I want a future that is cleaner and greener,” Mr. Shapiro bellowed to about a thousand cheering supporters. “I want a future with better schools and safer streets, and I want a future with more freedom, not less. I want a future where I can look the 47th president of the United States in the eye and say, ‘Hello, Madam President.’”

The rally at Wissahickon High School in Ambler, Pa., was something of a tryout for the governor who looks like he wants to be on the Democratic ticket, Mr. Shapiro, and the governor who has said she doesn’t, Ms. Whitmer. Both lead states in the so-called blue wall — Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin — that former Mr. Trump broke through in 2016, then President Biden won back four years later.

All three states have been seen as easier targets for Democrats than the Sun Belt swing states that Mr. Biden won in 2020: Arizona, Georgia and Nevada. Those states had been trending toward Mr. Trump before the president dropped his re-election bid. Now, that could change.

“The energy, people coming out of the woodwork to volunteer, it’s been amazing,” said Jason Salus, the treasurer of Montgomery County, one of the counties bordering Philadelphia that have made or broken Democratic victories in the state.

In 2016, Hillary Clinton beat Mr. Trump in Montgomery, Bucks, Chester and Delaware counties by 188,353 votes. Four years later, Mr. Biden won them by 287,740. In Montgomery County, Mr. Biden collected 57,000 more votes than Mrs. Clinton did in 2016. Ms. Harris will most likely have to run up the score in the suburban counties again.

In Ambler, both governors were joyfully vulgar. Both weighed in on what Ms. Whitmer called “our three-part strategy: Get Shit Done.” (Mr. Shapiro called it G.S.D.)

But their main job was to attest that Ms. Harris could beat Mr. Trump, and indeed that she already has him running scared.

“As attorney general, she put crooks and sex offenders behind bars,” Ms. Whitmer said of Ms. Harris’s days as California’s top law enforcement officer. “And it makes me think maybe that’s why Donald Trump’s so scared of her.”

Mr. Shapiro tried to remind the audience of “the chaos” of the years when Mr. Trump was in office, when “you didn’t want to pick up your phone and look because you didn’t want to know what he had done that day.”

He also appropriated some of the toughest lines that Mr. Trump and his supporters have leveled at Democrats, saying it is the former president “who doesn’t love this country.”

“This is the greatest country on the face of the earth. Let’s start acting like it,” he added.

Shane Goldmacher and Reid J. Epstein

Roy Cooper withdraws his name from Harris’s vice-presidential field.

Gov. Roy Cooper of North Carolina, who had been seen as a leading contender to become Vice President Kamala Harris’s running mate, has withdrawn from the vice-presidential sweepstakes.

Mr. Cooper confirmed the news, reported earlier by The New York Times, in a social media post on Monday night.

“This just wasn’t the right time for North Carolina and for me to potentially be on a national ticket,” Mr. Cooper wrote. “She has an outstanding list of people from which to choose, and we’ll all work to make sure she wins.”

Mr. Cooper, who previously served as chairman of the Democratic Governors Association, was asked last week by the Harris campaign to be vetted for vice president but declined to participate, according to two people engaged in the process, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations.

The Cooper team reached out to the Harris campaign a week ago on Monday to say he did not want to be considered, one of the people said. It was the day after President Biden had left the race and endorsed Ms. Harris as his successor.

Mr. Cooper harbored concerns that Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, a conservative Republican who is on the ballot this year to replace him, would mount a legal effort to usurp his executive authority while he was out of state, the two people said. Mr. Cooper did not believe Mr. Robinson would be successful but thought any such challenge would serve as a chaotic distraction had he been added to the ticket.

A spokesman for the Harris campaign declined to comment.

Mr. Cooper has known Ms. Harris dating to their overlapping days as state attorneys general and also campaigned recently with her. He has twice won governor’s races in North Carolina, a battleground state, even as Donald J. Trump carried the state at the presidential level. Mr. Cooper is prohibited from seeking a third term.

Mr. Cooper, 67, is older than Ms. Harris, 59, but still a decade younger than Mr. Trump. He is considered to be North Carolina Democrats’ top contender to challenge Senator Thom Tillis, a Republican who next faces re-election in 2026.

Ms. Harris is seeking to select a running mate on a highly compressed timeline, aiming to make her choice by Aug. 7 — a little more than two weeks after she entered the race to replace President Biden on the Democratic ticket.

Besides Mr. Cooper, those known to be under serious consideration include Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, Gov. Andy Beshear of Kentucky, Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona and the transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg.

The remaining leading candidates are all white men. All except Mr. Buttigieg have a history of electoral success in politically divided states. Mr. Beshear was elected twice in deep-red Kentucky, Mr. Walz represented a conservative House district before being elected governor, Mr. Shapiro won his attorney general race in 2016 when Mr. Trump carried Pennsylvania and Mr. Kelly has won Arizona twice in the last four years.

Mr. Shapiro on Monday campaigned for Ms. Harris in the Philadelphia suburbs with Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, who may have been a vice-presidential contender had she not taken herself out of the running last week.

“I want a future that is cleaner and greener,” Mr. Shapiro told about 1,000 supporters — an audience that would have been considered large for a Biden campaign stop just two weeks ago. “I want a future with better schools and safer streets, and I want a future full of freedom. I want to look the 47th president of the United States in the eye and say, ‘Madam President.’”

Two people with knowledge of the vice-presidential vetting process said the list had been narrowed to five, though the Harris campaign has vetted a dozen potential running mates. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the private deliberations.

The only other vice-presidential contender known to have withdrawn from the process is Adm. William H. McRaven, the former commander of the United States Special Operations Command, who publicly took himself out of consideration last week.

Ms. Harris’s vetting process began last week and is expected to run through this weekend. She has yet to meet in person with any of the potential running mates. The initial candidate interviews with members of her campaign staff have begun over video calls.

Several of those contenders have been campaigning publicly — and thus auditioning — for Ms. Harris in recent days. Mr. Buttigieg appeared on Fox News over the weekend and is set to appear on “The Daily Show” with Jon Stewart on Monday night. Mr. Walz has been a regular on CNN, MSNBC and Fox News — and even had a profile in the magazine Runner’s World . Mr. Beshear campaigned in Georgia.

The Republican mayor of Mesa, the third largest city in Arizona, endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris over former President Donald J. Trump in an opinion piece today , citing Trump’s lies about the 2020 election that have haunted officials in Arizona for years . “We have faced the brunt of misinformation, election denialism and an erosion of trust in our justice system,” said Mayor John Giles, noting that he leads one of America’s most conservative cities . He added that “the Republican Party with Trump at its helm continues down the path of political extremism.” The Harris campaign on Monday also highlighted a series of endorsements from the mayors of smaller Arizona border towns in more liberal areas, including Nogales, Somerton, Bisbee and San Luis.

The Justice Department will monitor voting in Arizona on Tuesday.

The Justice Department will monitor the primary elections in Arizona on Tuesday to safeguard Phoenix-area voters’ access to the ballot, the agency said Monday.

Arizona has been a hotbed for election conspiracy theories since Joseph R. Biden Jr. defeated Donald J. Trump in 2020 and flipped it and its largest county, Maricopa, blue.

Since then, the state has been embroiled by legal wrangling over various election challenges and legislation, its election workers have faced threats and in 2022, armed members of an election-monitoring group staked out ballot boxes in Maricopa County. Last week, an Alabama man pleaded guilty to charges of sending threatening messages to Maricopa election workers in 2022, according to the Justice Department.

The department released its plans to monitor voting on Tuesday in that county, which includes Phoenix and its suburbs.

The Justice Department often monitors polling sites during elections — it did so as recently as last month in Queens, for New York’s primary contests — and in 2022, it also said it would watch over general election polling sites in five Arizona counties.

The state’s top election official, Adrian Fontes, this year expressed frustration with the Justice Department and the Biden administration over its response to threats against election workers.

Mr. Fontes, who defeated a vocal election denier to win the race for secretary of state in 2022, is now overseeing a primary election that features another candidate with a history of making false election claims: Kari Lake.

Ms. Lake, a close Trump ally who lost her bid for governor in 2022, is facing a county sheriff, Mark Lamb, as she seeks the Republican nomination for Senate. Earlier this year, Ms. Lake urged her supporters to take up arms ahead of the November election.

She is vying for the chance to pick up the seat being vacated by Kyrsten Sinema, a former Democrat who left her party in 2022 to become an independent and decided not to run for re-election. Representative Ruben Gallego is running unopposed for the Democratic nomination.

The primaries on Tuesday in Arizona, a swing state that could be pivotal in the presidential election in November, will play out after a federal judge delivered a mixed ruling last winter on a pair of 2022 voting measures passed by the state’s Republican Legislature. The judge found that some parts of the laws violated the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964, but upheld a requirement for voters to prove their citizenship.

Katie Rogers

Biden warns that a recent decision in favor of former President Donald Trump that granted immunity to presidents for crimes while committed in office set a dangerous precedent. “For all practical purposes, the court’s decision almost certainly means that the president can violate the oath, flout our laws and face no consequences,” Biden says. “Folks, just imagine what a president could do trampling civil rights and liberties, given such immunity.”

Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, on an audition of sorts for the No. 2 spot on the Democratic ticket, delivered a rousing testimonial about Kamala Harris. “She’s not only ready, she’s damned ready,” he said to a cheering crowd. “And you know who else knows she’s ready? Donald Trump knows she’s ready.”

President Biden is speaking at the Lyndon B. Johnson presidential library to outline his proposals for major changes to the Supreme Court, including imposing term limits and creating an enforceable code of ethics on the justices.

Those proposals would require congressional approval and have little hope of gaining traction in a Republican-controlled House and a divided Senate. And Biden won't have a second term to try to push them through now that he's dropped out of the race — but Vice President Kamala Harris, who is poised to secure the party's nomination, backed his proposals for the court earlier today.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, speaking at a rally in suburban Pennsylvania for Kamala Harris, laid out what she called “a three-part strategy: Get Shit Done.” That sparked the crowd of about 1,000 to chant those three words. “OK, my foul-mouthed friends,” Whitmer said approvingly.

Kellen Browning

Reporting from Florence and Mesa, Ariz.

A Trump-supporting sheriff’s stand against Kari Lake in Arizona.

Mark Lamb, the Pinal County sheriff and a Republican candidate for U.S. Senate, strode around his spacious office overlooking the Sonoran Desert, proudly pointing out his accumulated memorabilia.

Here was the old cowboy rifle his wife had gifted him when he first won his post in 2016. It sat across from an animal skull and an engraved pistol, and it was below a framed New York Post cover story praising him as the “last line of defense” against drug traffickers. There was a signed card from the Trumps — Donald, Melania and Barron — thanking him for attending a Christmas party at Mar-a-Lago, the former president’s private home and resort. American flags and eagles abounded.

“I’m a dadgum patriot,” Mr. Lamb said.

But he’s not Kari Lake, the former news anchor and close Trump ally who has dominated a race Mr. Lamb says he’s still hopeful he can win.

For months Ms. Lake, 54, has held substantial leads over Mr. Lamb, 52, in surveys. With Mr. Trump’s endorsement and the backing of the Washington Republican establishment — and all the advertising dollars that came with it — she is widely expected to sail to victory in the primary on Tuesday night. The winner will go up against Representative Ruben Gallego, who is running unopposed on the Democratic side, for the seat being vacated by Senator Kyrsten Sinema, the Democrat-turned-independent who decided not to run for re-election.

Mr. Lamb’s struggles to break through are reflective of the broader party dynamic, Arizona political operatives and strategists said. Despite burnishing his brand as a cowboy hat-wearing, Americana-loving, immigration hard-liner, a résumé that might normally appeal to the Republican faithful in a border state, it is Ms. Lake who is near-ubiquitous, thanks to her success in modeling herself in the president’s image.

“This has been the pattern of Republican primary politics in Arizona: He that is most liketh Trump shall win,” said Chuck Coughlin, a longtime Arizona political consultant for Republicans. But, he noted, such candidates have had difficulty with general election voters. “Since 2016, when Trump won unaffiliated voters, no MAGA candidate has repeated that.”

While Mr. Lamb eschews the “MAGA” label, he has espoused views Democrats would be eager to highlight as extreme, should he manage an upset, including questioning the 2020 election results, sympathizing with those at the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol, and praising the state’s now-repealed 1864 law banning abortion. Mr. Lamb has often been associated with the Constitutional Sheriff movement, a group that believes the authority of a sheriff can pre-empt any other legal body and that sheriffs can choose not to enforce laws they consider to be unconstitutional.

“Lamb has his warts, too,” Mr. Coughlin said.

With Republicans, though, Ms. Lake has the big advantage of name recognition. At political rallies across the state this spring and summer, many voters said they had never heard of Mr. Lamb. At a recent event in Mesa, Ariz., east of Phoenix, where Mr. Lamb spoke, the room was split between his supporters and those who did not know much about him.

Tom Standish, a Mesa resident, was undecided in the primary and knew little about the sheriff before the event, so he was eager to hear Mr. Lamb speak. Afterward, Mr. Standish, 72, said Mr. Lamb made a strong impression, but his own lack of knowledge about the sheriff and the feeling of Ms. Lake’s inevitability swayed him to her side.

“I just think she’s going to win the primary and has the best chance in the general,” Mr. Standish said.

As evidence of a tightening race, Mr. Lamb’s campaign pointed to a new survey on Monday that found 49 percent of likely primary voters backing Ms. Lake, compared with 38 percent who supported Mr. Lamb. But the poll, from Noble Predictive Insights , a nonpartisan, Phoenix-based pollster, also suggests he still has sizable ground to make up.

Though Ms. Lake has locked up significant support, a handful of Republicans are quietly balking at the prospect of her becoming the nominee. Her unequivocal embrace of Mr. Trump’s lies over a stolen election made her a polarizing figure during her 2022 run for governor, and independents, a key voting bloc, sided with her opponent, Katie Hobbs, to hand Democrats their first gubernatorial victory in the state since 2006. Ms. Lake also alienated the family and supporters of John McCain, the longtime Arizona senator who defied Mr. Trump and whose maverick brand of Republican politics is still popular in the state.

As Republicans work to retake control of the chamber, Arizona has not been considered a top-tier pickup opportunity in part because of uncertainty around Ms. Lake’s general election chances. Mr. Gallego has led Ms. Lake by mid-single digits in most polls examining the matchup.

Ms. Lake’s campaign, which has mostly ignored Mr. Lamb and kept its focus on the general election, did not respond to a request for comment.

“A lot of Republicans this cycle have said, ‘Hey, look, we keep losing. What are we doing? We’ve got to make some changes,’” Mr. Lamb said in a recent interview.

He pointed to the fact that candidates who are endorsed by Mr. Trump, like Ms. Lake, “have struggled to get over the finish line, so you can’t be naïve to that.”

The doubts about Ms. Lake have brought the sheriff some eleventh hour support. American Encore, a conservative nonprofit, spent about $500,000 in pro-Lamb advertisements in July, according to Sean Noble, the organization’s president, including a television ad knocking Ms. Lake.

“Donald Trump needs a workhorse in the Senate, not a show horse,” the ad says, flashing a photo of Ms. Lake.

A handful of notable Arizona Republicans have also backed Mr. Lamb in recent days, including Randy Kendrick, a top donor who is married to Ken Kendrick, the owner of the Arizona Diamondbacks.

“It appears that Kari Lake cannot win the general election for Senate,” Ms. Kendrick wrote in a recent email to her contacts. In the email, first reported by The Washington Post, she argued that Mr. Lamb stood a better chance against Mr. Gallego.

Either way, it may be too late for him to significantly shake up the race.

Part of Mr. Lamb’s challenge in building a base of support in the primary, and potentially beyond, is that he is far from a moderate alternative to Ms. Lake.

After being elected sheriff in Pinal County , Mr. Lamb started appearing on reality docuseries shows about law enforcement like 60 Days In and Live PD, growing his social media presence and branding himself the “American Sheriff.”

In 2020, he made headlines when he refused to enforce a statewide stay-at-home order early in the pandemic — shortly before catching Covid himself — saying the rule restricted residents’ constitutional freedoms. (“For me, it was clear that those were violations of our ability to have life, liberty and pursue happiness,” Mr. Lamb said.)

His organization, Protect America Now , is affiliated with and espouses similar ideas to the Constitutional Sheriff movement, and has worked to investigate and amplify claims of election fraud that have been debunked.

And he has become a frequent guest on right-wing media outlets like Newsmax, where he has assailed President Biden’s handling of the border crisis.

Yet Mr. Lamb has not embraced the conspiracies over the 2020 election with the same eagerness as Ms. Lake and many of her supporters. Mr. Lamb has said that he did not find evidence of widespread election fraud in Pinal County, which is southeast of Phoenix, and Ms. Lake has accused him of being weak on the issue.

“I absolutely think our elections have problems,” Mr. Lamb said. “But I don’t know that rehashing four years ago is helpful.”

He has praised Mr. Trump, but not in the same glowing terms as Ms. Lake.

“I don’t love the term MAGA. I don’t love ‘RINO.’ I don’t love any of that. I’m an American,” Mr. Lamb said, referring to the acronyms for Make America Great Again and Republican in Name Only. “I like Trump, I like his policies, I like that he’s a fighter.”

That has left Mr. Lamb in something of a political no-man’s land.

“Mark Lamb can be as Trump-like as he wants, but he can’t out-Trump Kari Lake,” said Mike Noble, the chief executive of Noble Predictive Insight, the Arizona pollster. “Lamb’s only other option is the McCain lane — something he’s not built for.”

I’m at Wissahickon High School in the Philadelphia suburb of Ambler, where Govs. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania and Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan are about to rally supporters behind Vice President Kamala Harris. Shapiro is considered a serious contender to be Harris’s running mate, while Whitmer — also a co-chair of the Harris campaign — has said she has no plans to leave her job.

In a video message , Vice President Kamala Harris condemned a six-week abortion ban that goes into effect in Iowa today, calling it a “Trump abortion ban.” Harris has aggressively tied abortion restrictions in Republican-led states to former President Donald Trump. Democrats see the vice president as a more effective messenger than President Biden on abortion rights, a key issue in the election.

Vice President Kamala Harris has endorsed the Supreme Court reforms that President Biden proposed this morning: 18-year term limits, a binding code of conduct and a constitutional amendment saying presidents don’t have criminal immunity. “These popular reforms will help to restore confidence in the court, strengthen our democracy and ensure no one is above the law,” she said in a statement released by her campaign.

House Majority PAC, a super PAC affiliated with Democratic House leadership, is adding $24 million to its previously announced $186 million in ad reservations for the fall. Much of that will go toward races that the group was already focusing on, but it is also adding three new Republican-held districts to its list of targets: Iowa’s First District and Wisconsin’s First and Third Districts.

President Biden called this morning for major reforms to the Supreme Court. In an opinion article for The Washington Post, he endorsed 18-year term limits and a binding code of conduct for justices. He also called for a constitutional amendment saying presidents don’t have immunity for crimes committed in office, which would repudiate the justices’ recent ruling otherwise.

Biden calls for major changes to the Supreme Court.

Biden calls for supreme court reforms, the president outlined his proposals for major changes to the supreme court, including imposing term limits and creating an enforceable code of ethics on the justices..

We need a mandatory code of ethics for the Supreme Court, and we need it now. We’ve had term limits for presidents of the United States for nearly 75 years, after the Truman administration. And I believe we should have term limits for Supreme Court justices in the United States as well. I’m calling for a constitutional amendment. Called No One Is Above the Law Amendment. I mean this sincerely. It holds no immunity for crimes former president committed while in office. My fellow Americans, based on all my experience, I’m certain we need these reforms. We need these reforms to restore trust in the courts, preserve the system of checks and balances that are vital to our democracy. We’re also common sense reforms that a vast majority of the American people support, as well as leading constitutional law scholars, progressives and conservatives.

President Biden, warning that the country’s courts were being weaponized as part of an “extreme and unchecked” conservative agenda, said on Monday that he would push for legislation that would bring major changes to the Supreme Court, including term limits and an enforceable code of ethics on the justices.

Mr. Biden detailed his plans in a speech at the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library and Museum in Austin, Texas, his first public engagement since announcing his decision to end his presidential campaign last week.

His visit was initially scheduled to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act. But it quickly became a venue for Mr. Biden to begin buttoning up a 51-year legislative legacy while outlining an election-year intention to try to stop what many in his party feel is the Supreme Court’s ideological drift into conservatism.

The proposal would require congressional approval and has little hope of gaining traction in a Republican-controlled House and a divided Senate. In a social media post, Speaker Mike Johnson called the plan “dead on arrival” in the House. (Mr. Biden later said onstage that Mr. Johnson’s “thinking is dead on arrival.”)

Earlier this month, the court issued a 6-to-3 ruling that grants broad immunity to presidents from prosecution for actions they take while in office. Mr. Biden called for a constitutional amendment that would limit such immunity .

“For all practical purposes, the court’s decision almost certainly means that the president can violate the oath, flout our laws and face no consequences,” Mr. Biden said. “Folks, just imagine what a president could do trampling civil rights and liberties, given such immunity.”

Mr. Biden, warning that “extremism is undermining the public confidence in the court’s decisions,” said conservative plans for sweeping policy changes if former President Donald J. Trump wins a second term, known as Project 2025, would continue to push the courts to the right.

“They’re serious, man,” Mr. Biden said. “They’re planning another onslaught attacking civil rights in America.”

His remarks were met with support from others in his party, including Vice President Kamala Harris, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, who said she was a partner in the effort and would take up Mr. Biden’s proposal in her campaign.

“These popular reforms will help to restore confidence in the court, strengthen our democracy and ensure no one is above the law,” she said in a statement sent by her campaign.

The conservative activist Leonard A. Leo, who is known for making the appointments of conservative judges a core of the Republican Party’s agenda, assailed Mr. Biden’s efforts as partisan: “It’s about Democrats destroying a court they don’t agree with,” he said in a statement.

The president and his advisers argue that Americans are broadly concerned about the inner workings of a court that has swung to the right in the years since Mr. Biden took office. Recent polls show that the Supreme Court’s approval rating is at a historic low and that a majority of Americans believe that the court’s decisions are driven by ideology.

Over the past two years, Justice Clarence Thomas has become embroiled in ethical scandals for failing to disclose gifts and luxury trips bestowed by a billionaire benefactor. Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. has faced scrutiny about why flags associated with the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol flew outside his homes.

In his remarks on Monday, Mr. Biden said a system of lifetime appointments to the Supreme Court gave a president undue influence for decades, and he endorsed 18-year term limits for the justices. He said he supported a code of conduct that would require justices to disclose gifts, refrain from public political activity and recuse themselves from cases in which they or their spouses have financial or other conflicts of interest, calling them “common-sense reforms that a vast majority of Americans support.”

The amendment he proposed curbing the court’s immunity ruling would state that the Constitution does not confer to former presidents any immunity from federal criminal indictment, trial, conviction or sentencing, a fact sheet released by the White House said. But a constitutional amendment limiting that decision would be difficult to enact, requiring two-thirds votes in Congress or at a convention called for by two-thirds of the states, followed by ratification by three-fourths of the state legislatures.

Even if Congress had the will to pass the sort of legislation Mr. Biden is proposing, it would raise significant legal questions, said Richard W. Garnett, who teaches constitutional law at Notre Dame.

“We don’t really have completely clear rules about the extent to which Congress is able to regulate the internal practices of the court,” Mr. Garnett said. “The things about retirement ages and term limits are complicated by the Constitution’s text. I think things like disclosure rules might be in a different category.”

Mr. Trump denounced Mr. Biden’s ideas on social media this month, accusing him and Democrats of “desperately trying to ‘Play the Ref’ by calling for an illegal and unConstitutional attack on our SACRED United States Supreme Court.”

Mr. Biden has been discussing the proposals with constitutional scholars in recent months, and he had been inching toward announcing them when he ended his campaign. Progressives have urged him to move to limit the power of justices and have called for expanding the number of justices to balance the court’s conservative supermajority, but Mr. Biden has opposed those changes.

A commission Mr. Biden created in 2021 to examine the issues did not make specific recommendations, and he did not take any action. Since then, the Supreme Court has overturned Roe v. Wade, blocked gun control measures and rejected affirmative action in college admissions.

Adding to the historic significance was Mr. Biden’s choice of venue, as Johnson was the last Democratic president to announce during an election year that he would not seek re-election. Jeffrey Berry, a professor of political science at Tufts University, said the similarities ended there.

“Johnson was driven out by a poor performance in the primaries,” Mr. Berry said, calling that situation fundamentally different from what happened with Mr. Biden, who he said “was pushed out by a party that didn’t want him, and that is rare.”

The appearance was another opportunity to endorse Ms. Harris, whose campaign has raised more than $200 million and garnered widespread support from the Democratic Party in a week.

Perhaps the biggest change, so far, is how quickly Ms. Harris has surged into the spotlight and how willingly Mr. Biden has seemed to step back. He has little planned on his public schedule aside from a trip to Houston on Monday evening to pay respects to Representative Sheila Jackson Lee, the Texas Democrat who died last week . On the tarmac in Austin, Mr. Biden was greeted by Representative Lloyd Doggett, the first Democratic congressman to call on him to end his campaign.

Mark K. Updegrove, the president of the LBJ Foundation, praised Mr. Biden for his decision to pick Ms. Harris as vice president and said his legacy as president was already clear: The president, he said, “has made the central cause of his presidency the preservation and strengthening of democracy.”

An earlier version of this article misstated the length of President Biden’s legislative legacy. Mr. Biden became a senator and began legislating in 1973, which is 51 years ago, not 57 years ago.

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Anushka Patil

Vance heads west this week, and Shapiro and Whitmer rally in Pennsylvania.

Two prominent governors will headline a campaign event for Vice President Kamala Harris this week in Pennsylvania, while Senator JD Vance of Ohio heads west to Nevada and Arizona in what will be some of the Republican vice-presidential nominee’s first appearances for the Trump campaign outside the Midwest.

Governors Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania and Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan will hold a rally on behalf of Ms. Harris on Monday, according to her campaign, in an event that Mr. Shapiro’s office said would be held outside of Philadelphia. Mr. Shapiro is one of the top contenders to be Ms. Harris’s running mate , and his state is widely considered a must-win for Democrats. (Ms. Whitmer, a co-chair of the Harris campaign who is also often mentioned as a vice-presidential contender, has said she has no plans to leave her current job.)

Mr. Vance will hold rallies on Tuesday in Henderson and Reno in Nevada, and on Wednesday in Glendale, Ariz. Thus far, Mr. Vance, who has had a rocky start , has mostly appeared on familiar Midwestern ground, including in his Ohio hometown, Middletown. The Arizona rally will come just a day after the state’s closely watched primaries, including for the Senate seat being vacated by Kyrsten Sinema, the Democrat turned independent who said in March that she would not seek re-election .

Ms. Harris and Donald J. Trump are also on the road this week. Ms. Harris will hold a rally in Atlanta on Tuesday to shore up support in the key swing state of Georgia, where support for President Biden had been slipping before he ended his re-election bid a week ago.

And Mr. Trump will host a rally in Pennsylvania’s capital, Harrisburg, on Wednesday, making his return to the state where he survived an assassination attempt two weeks ago. Mr. Trump has said he intends to hold another rally in Butler, where the attempt on his life took place, but has not said when.

The Harris campaign says it has raised $200 million in less than a week.

Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign said on Sunday that it had raised $200 million in the week since President Biden withdrew from the race — more than Mr. Biden’s haul in the first three months of the year.

Roughly two-thirds of that amount came from first-time donors, according to the campaign, offering another sign that Ms. Harris’s ascent to the top of the party’s ticket has invigorated Democrats. The campaign also said it had signed up more than 170,000 new volunteers.

And more money is coming: Ms. Harris will hold a fund-raiser in Houston on Wednesday, according to a copy of the invitation reviewed by The New York Times.

It is unclear how much of the $200 million has gone directly to the campaign versus to allied Democratic Party committees. But it is eye-catching, even in comparison with other surges recorded over the course of the 2024 race. Former President Donald J. Trump’s campaign reported raising nearly $53 million in the first day after his criminal conviction in May, a haul that helped him outpace Mr. Biden that month and erase what had been a significant financial advantage for the president.

The swell of support comes after Democrats, thrown for a loop by Mr. Biden’s poor debate performance, spent weeks loudly despairing about their prospects. Even so, Ms. Harris’s campaign has sought to tamp down expectations, as it faces the task of sustaining that enthusiasm into November.

A campaign spokesman, Michael Tyler, said in a statement, “The momentum and energy for Vice President Harris is real — and so are the fundamentals of this race: this election will be very close and decided by a small number of voters in just a few states.”

And Ms. Harris herself said at a fund-raiser on Saturday, “We are the underdogs in this race.”

Nicholas Nehamas and Theodore Schleifer contributed reporting.