All You Should Know about Using Quotes in an Essay

As you tackle your essay writing assignments in college, you will always need to cite someone in your papers. Referencing others, however, requires a certain degree of mastery so that you do it within the defined and established rules of academic writing. The reason is it is extremely necessary to make citations based on different academic writing styles you use in college such as the MLA, APA, and Harvard. That is why you ought to know these styles so that you can do it right. This article will share with you how to make citations using the three styles I have mentioned above. What is a quotation inside your assignment and what is its usefulness? As a student, making citations within your papers is a needful requirement. A quote is a direct or indirect referencing of what another person said about a particular issue. You can reference them verbatim or by rephrasing. But why are quotes important in the overall rating and effectiveness of your assignment? Read on below to find all the answers. First, quoting someone directly concretizes the base of your evidence as you uphold your arguments. This way, you make your arguments livelier. Second, citing others offers your readers concrete proof you play as per the rules since the laws of academic writing demand it. Third, quoting another person in your essay helps to build the credibility of your arguments since you give the reader the opportunity to cross-examine your evidence against an authority. Fourth, making quotes in your paper shows your readers that you respect fair play by respecting other people’s efforts by recognizing them. Fifth, by quoting others in your essays, you prove that you have refused to fall into the trap of plagiarism. However, you need to be discreet when using this method. The reason is that you can fall into another trap if you don’t apply balance. If you fill your essay with excessive citations, you will also lose the value of your essay. You may avoid plagiarism and get the benefits I have mentioned above but lose out on other issues such as originality of thought and the ability to incorporate your personal thoughts into your paper. You may end up looking like another academic parrot and echo that is echoing and parroting things they don’t understand. To get the balance, quotes should bolster your arguments, and not replace your ability to think and argue on your feet. Making citations as per the MLA style The MLA is among the leading and most popular styles of quoting in essays. We start off by looking at how to quote someone in an essay MLA. Should you be required to make quotations using this format, it is necessary you incorporate the name of the author and the page number but leave out the citation’s date. In MLA, quoting anything under four lines is taken to be a shorter citation. While doing so, it is necessary that you give your quotation an introduction so that readers can know what to expect. Additionally, you should place quotes inside double quotation marks with the last name of the author, and the page number. For instance, write, Kim asserts that â€Å"More people are dying of lifestyle diseases than HIV/AIDS† (56). If you want to cite someone beyond four lines, that amounts to a long quote. These citations don’t require you to use quotation marks. You need to begin it with a sentence of text followed by a colon. Thereafter, indent the opening sentence of the quote to the right by a single inch. You may finalize by punctuating it and adding the name of the author and the page number in parenthesis after the citation. That is how to put a long quote in an essay in the MLA writing style. Making quotations according to APA style guidelines This section will show you how to quote someone in an essay APA. This style allows you to give the last name of the author and page number like the MLA requires. However, including dates is not a must. In addition, this style demands that you include a â€Å"P† in front of the page number. In this style, a short quote is below 40 words. Look at this sample: In the words of Fredrick, (1989), â€Å"Exercise has numerous health benefits which the larger population has not yet appreciated† (p. 69). Likewise, this format to make short quotes: Stewart discovered that â€Å"Poachers are killing more elephants than we initially thought† (1990, p.46). When making long quotes, follow the same rule the MLA format follows. The only difference is the length of aligning the quotes where you should align it  ½ of an inch instead of an inch. When rephrasing quotes, follow the same rules as with direct short quotes but do not include any quotation mark. When citing various authors, use the â€Å"† sign to join the names of the authors in an alphabetical order. When citing from the Net, get the author’s name, the year, and paragraph number. Referencing using Harvard style This section shows you how to quote someone in an essay Harvard using the Harvard format. When required to quote someone directly, use single quotation marks to lock the text followed by the author, date, and page number. When quoting four lines of text and above, use block quotes minus quotation marks. If you are supposed to cite someone indirectly, acknowledge the author at the end of the quotes. Find help with your essay This article has shared with you all the established ways of making various types of direct, and indirect citations using the main academic formatting styles. With all these facts at your fingertips, you are better placed to bolster your citation skills. But if you run into deadlines, you can get professional essay writing help from our professional writers here. You are always welcome to talk to us anytime you need urgent essay writing help.