- Quote directly from the text if the style used or the way something is expressed is significant to your point.
- Do not quote if you are simply giving plot details.
- Quote or give a textual example to back up each point you make.
- Do not quote unless the material is directly relevant to your point, and only quote those phrases which are of relevance. Be economical and precise in your use of quotations.
- If you need to include a quotation of more than two lines, offset it by increasing the margins on both left and right.
- Embed quotations within your own prose – this effectively means that they should form part of a longer sentence, often preceded by a comma or a colon.
- Explain who is speaking/give some kind of context for the quotation. Examples:
As Mario says of Julia, ‘…’.’
Marito’s sense of comedy is evident, particularly as he describes ‘el air cariñoso que adoptan los adultos cuando se dirigen a los idiotas y a los niños’.
- Do not simply leave a quotation to speak for itself – make explicit the point you are drawing out.
- The following should be italicized or underlined: titles of plays, novels, or critical works which represent the whole book in question. The following should be placed in single inverted commas: titles of poems, articles or short stories. The rule is that anything which is part of a larger work (e.g. an article in a journal, or a poem in a collection) goes in inverted commas; everything else is italicized or underlined.
- Make sure you know the capitalization rules for the language you are working in. English titles take capitals for all major words, but other languages have different rules.