How To Quote In An Essay

Quotations in essay allow you to use the word of another person in your essay to increase its credibility. This practice becomes more efficient if you use the right citation techniques to achieve this. Quoting in an essay without the appropriate citation will mean that you commit plagiarism, which will affect your essay. This post will guide you on how to quote in an essay. 

Tips On How To Quote In An Essay

The Backbone To Any Quoting Process

Before you can quote anything in your essay, it is important to know beforehand which citation style your paper is following. The citation style will affect the way in which you write the quote. Failure to use the right citation technique will result in an instance of plagiarism on your end. The following guidelines will show you how to quote in an essay using different citation techniques. 

How To Quote In An Essay Using Different Citation Techniques

MLA 

The MLA citation guide offers guidelines on how you can quote different authors or speakers in your essay to avoid plagiarism. Using MLA, the focus is on how you write the exact quotation and the source it comes from. 

There are two ways to go about this. The first one is where you will write the exact quote of the author or speaker in quotation marks. You will then follow this up with a parenthesis that discloses the name of the author or speaker or the publication from which you got the quote. Additionally, you will list the page number, verse number or paragraph number of the exact quote. 

Unlike in other citation styles, in MLA, when quoting a person or publication, the year is not necessary to list in the in-text citation. However, when writing the bibliography at the end of the essay, you will have to indicate the year when the speaker said the quote or the author or publisher wrote it. 

Additionally, for the MLA citation style, you do not have to write a ‘p’ acronym to indicate the page number. You will list the page number after writing the name of the speaker or author, then a period and the page number immediately after. For example, ‘‘Make America great again’’ (Trump, 2016). 

The other way of doing this is mentioning the name of the author or speaker before the quote and then writing the page number in parenthesis after. 

APA 

APA is the other most commonly used citation style in essays. When quoting in an essay using the APA citation style, the rules are similar to the ones used in MLA above. However, they differentiate at some point. 

Just as in MLA above, you will need to enclose the direct quote in double-quotes when you include it in your essay. Additionally, you will need to have a comma before the closing quotation marks. The contents of the parenthesis will be similar to what happens in MLA. 

The difference, however, is that in APA, there is a need to list the year the writer or speaker mentioned the quote. Nevertheless, you will still mention this in the bibliography at the end of your essay. 

Using the APA citation style, you can also choose to mention the name of the author or speaker first and then follow up that with the quote. You will then list the year or page number in parenthesis after. 

What To Pay Attention To

When using either citation styles to quote in an essay, it is essential to pay attention to a few things. Firstly, ensure that if quoting directly, you do not alter the words of the speaker or the author. Any slight alterations will change the meaning of the quote and may result in plagiarism. 

Secondly, pay attention to the punctuation. It is vital to ensure that you use double quotation marks to open and close the quote you will use in your essay. Additionally, be keen on the comma or period that comes before the closing quotation mark. 

Final Thoughts 

Quoting in an essay is the best way to improve the credibility of your essay. It is therefore encouraged to quote correctly to help avoid committing plagiarism and also to help validate the points you present in your essay. Ensure that you stick to guidelines provided for in the style guide that your institution uses.

An example of how to quote in an essay

How do you quote a source in an essay?

How to quote a source in an essay will depend on how long the essay is and the citation style you’re using.
To quote a source correctly in your essay, you must consider the following:
1. Ensure your quoted text has quotation marks.
2. The original author should be well cited.
3. The text must be identical to the original.

How do you cite a quote from a person?

When it comes to making reference of the words spoken by someone you will cite the person and author-name, the date and reference page of the quote.

How do you quote a question?

To quote a question means to surround the question with quotation marks.