COM 101 (Dow)

WORKING WITH QUOTATIONS

While you are required to quote an author’s words verbatim, because you are incorporating his or her words into an essay that is primarily your words, you are able to modify quoted material in specific ways when you have good reasons to do so. These modifications are allowed for three reasons: for brevity, for clarity, and for grammatical accuracy.

For brevity, you are allowed to exclude portions of a longer passage. You indicate this alteration to your reader by using ellipses.  [. . .]  As indicated here, the ellipsis appears between brackets as this is an alteration of the original passage.  Keep in mind, however, that the abbreviated version should not alter the overall meaning of the larger passage.  In other words, don’t take quotes out of context.  Also, you don’t need to use ellipses when the omitted section comes before the passage you are quoting.

Example
Regarding the sometimes necessary modifications of quoted passages, Professor Dow notes, "For brevity, you are allowed to exclude portions of a longer passage.  [. . .]   Keep in mind, however, that the abbreviated version should not alter the overall meaning of the larger passage. In other words, don’t take quotes out of context."

For clarity, you are allowed to replace unclear pronouns with their antecedents (often proper nouns).

Example
Whenever he discusses education, President Bush cannot help noting his very personal connection to the teaching profession: "[The First Lady] was a teacher when we met, and she has devoted her life to improving the quality of education in our state."

The proper noun in square brackets replaces a less clear "She" from the original quote.

For grammatical accuracy, you can use square brackets to change upper case letters to lower case or lower case letters to upper case.

Example
Regarding the value of education, Robert Frost states that "[e]ducation is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence."