how to quote yourself in a research paper

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Academic Skills: Writing: Reusing Your Work and Citing Yourself

As you progress in your Walden program, you may find that you research and write about a topic more than once. This is typical as you engage with key concepts and specialize in your field of study. See the information and best practices on this page to ensure you follow APA citation guidelines and Walden policy if you plan to reuse past written work.

Your Published Writing

If you have published your writing outside of the Walden classroom—in a journal or even in a local newsletter or blog—and would like to reuse portions of it or refer to the findings or ideas in that work, you will need to cite yourself.

Follow APA’s guidelines for citing and referencing published works.

Your Previous Coursework

If you are considering reusing your previously submitted Walden coursework in a new course or term, review the following best practice and policy sections.

Best Practices for Reusing Work

• During your studies at Walden, you may write on the same topic for a second, third, or fourth time; regardless, your writing should reflect new approaches and insights into that topic to demonstrate intellectual growth.
• Your writing submitted for previous Walden courses will show up in the Turnitin Similarity Report when reused. Contact your faculty if you plan to reuse your work to avoid concerns about possible plagiarism. Additionally, you could cite your unpublished writing (see How to Cite Your Unpublished Work below).
• Your faculty for your current course can guide you about whether reusing your previous writing seems appropriate for a particular assignment or writing task.

Walden University’s Policy on Reusing Work

The following comes from the Walden Student Code of Conduct :

Walden Students’ Use of Their Own Scholarly Work

• Students may reuse their work without an expectation that previously awarded grades or credit will attach to the new assignment. Any work previously published by the student must be appropriately cited if reused. 
• Field Experience Exception: Any assignments or documentation submitted related to field experience (work, hours, client or patient logs, etc) must be new, current, accurate, and relate to clients or patients seen during the term and in direct reference to the assignment.

How to Cite Your Unpublished Work

Although not required in the policy above, in rare instances, you may need to or want to cite your unpublished Walden coursework.

If you cite or quote your previous work, treat yourself as the author and your own written document as the source. For example, if Marie Briggs wanted to cite a paper she wrote at Walden in 2022, her citation might look like this:

Briggs (2022) asserted that previous literature on the psychology of tightrope walkers was faulty in that it "presumed that risk-taking behaviors align neatly with certain personality traits or disorders" (p. 4).

And in the reference list:

Briggs, M. (2022). An analysis of personality theory [Unpublished manuscript]. Walden University.

Multimedia Resources

• The Northwest Passage, or Why You Should Cite Yourself Only Sparingly (blog post)
• To Cite Yourself or Not Cite Yourself (blog post)

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FAQ: How should I cite my own work?

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Last Updated: Jun 22, 2023 Views: 196301

If you want to re-use portions of a paper you wrote for a previous assignment or course, you need to take care to avoid self-plagiarism. The APA Manual (7th edition, p. 21) defines self-plagiarism as “the act of presenting one's own previously published work as original." This includes entire papers, and also slightly altered work. Self-plagiarism is a violation of SNHU’s Academic Honesty Policy ( Online Student Academic Integrity Policy This link opens in a new window ,  Campus Student Academic Integrity Policy This link opens in a new window ). To avoid self-plagiarism, you should request approval from your instructor to use portions of your prior work, and you also need to provide a proper citation within your paper.

If you are citing your own writing from a paper submitted for a previous course, then you would generally cite it as an unpublished manuscript. Here are specific examples of how it works in the three major citation styles:

Please check with your instructor to verify if you can use a previous work as it may violate academic integrity, honor codes, etc. If you are permitted to quote or paraphrase from earlier work, students should cite the work, following the unpublished work template (Section 10.8, p. 336). You can change “Unpublished manuscript” to “Unpublished paper” or another phrase.

Reference Page General Format

Author, A. A. (Year). Title of the work [Unpublished paper]. Department Name, University Name.

Reference Page Example

Fisher, J. D. (2021). This is the title of my paper [Unpublished paper]. English Department, Southern New Hampshire University.

In-Text Example

(Fisher, 2021)

According to the MLA Style site, authors should cite their work the same way they would cite any other source (book, article, etc.). In the text you can refer to yourself (e.g. "In my work...").

Works Cited General Format

Author Last name, Author First Name. "Title of Your Paper: Subtitle of Your Paper." Date. Name of the Course, Institution, Type of Work.

Works Cited Example

Lee, Cody. "My Student Paper: Why I Like This Subject a Lot." 9 Sept. 2021. New Media: Writing and Publishing, Southern New Hampshire University, student paper.

In-Text Citation Example

See the MLA Style pages Citing Your Own Work This link opens in a new window and How do I cite an unpublished student paper? This link opens in a new window for more information.

Chicago Style

Per the Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition), unpublished works such as theses and dissertations are cited like books, with the exception that titles of unpublished works appear in quotations, not italics. Also, the type of paper, the academic institution, and the date follow the title.

For published works, please consult the Chicago Style Table of Contents This link opens in a new window for the type of source and follow the formatting guidelines associated.

Bibliography General Format

Author Last Name, Author First Name. "Title of Paper." Essay, Southern New Hampshire University, Year.

Bibliography Example

Wendell, Richard. "This Is the Title of My Paper." Essay, Southern New Hampshire University, 2021.

Note Example

2. Richard Wendell, "This Is the Title of My Paper" (essay, Southern New Hampshire University, 2021), 4.

More Information

• Citing Your Sources  (Shapiro Library) research guide.  

Further Help

This information is intended to be a guideline, not expert advice. Please be sure to speak to your professor about the appropriate way to cite sources in your class assignments and projects.

Campus Students

To access Academic Support, visit your Brightspace course and select “Tutoring and Mentoring” from the Academic Support pulldown menu.

Online Students

To access help with citations and more, visit the Academic Support via modules in Brightspace:

• Academic Support Overview: Getting Help with your Schoolwork This link opens in a new window

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How do I cite my own work?

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How you cite your own work depends on what it is, and whether or not it has been published.

Published work

If you are citing a published work, you cite it as per normal for the work (e.g., photograph, book chapter, etc). For the citation (both in-text and in the reference list) you refer to yourself by name just as you would any other author. When discussing your work in-text, the general convention is to talk about yourself in the third person, but make it clear that it is your own work you are discussion:

Previous research undertaken by this author has shown... (Bloggs, 2018).

But it may be appropriate to refer to yourself using first person pronouns, particularly if you are writing a reflective piece, so check with your lecturer.

In my previous research I found... (Bloggs, 2018)

Unpublished work

If the work can be found or sourced online by the public, it is informally published and should be treated as a web page. If it cannot be found by the public and can only be accessed by people who have been given access to the private link or sent a copy in person, then it is an unpublished work.

Photographs, illustrations, art

Unpublished photographs and works of art created for the assignment (or appearing only in the assignment/paper and no where else) are not cited - so they do not have a formal in-text citation or an entry in the reference list. Treat it as a figure, and add any necessary details in the Note section under the image.

Add "Own work" to the image if you feel it needs to be made clear that this is an image you created yourself.

Hong Kong before 2019/2020

Note . Photograph of Hong Kong taken in early 2000s. Own work.

If you are using your own image for an illustration in a PowerPoint presentation, you don't have to cite it, but you can put "Own work" on or under the image somewhere unobtrusive if you wish to avoid confusion.

When referring to your own artistic work in text, you need to make it clear that you are talking about your own work, but you do not cite it.

Previous assignments

Assignments submitted for other subjects are regarded as unpublished manuscripts, and are cited as such.

Reference list:

Bloggs, J. (2020). Lancelot does not deserve your love: Critiquing the "heroes" of Arthurian legends [Unpublished assignment submitted for EL1006]. James Cook University.

(Bloggs, 2020).

However, your past assignments are not usually considered to be a scholarly source, and most lectures do not want you to cite your previous assessment . You should only refer to past assignment work if you have been explicitly asked to do so (e.g. for a reflective assignment).

It would be much better to update your research and conclusions from the past assignment (and use new words to express your thoughts) than to refer to it or cite it.

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How to Cite Yourself

• Posted on December 22, 2021 December 22, 2021

You already know that it’s unethical and, in some cases, illegal to use another person’s work without giving them credit. Plagiarism is intellectual theft, whether you’re a professional writer or a student. But did you also know that it’s possible to plagiarize yourself?

Like other forms of plagiarism,  self-plagiarism  can cause severe problems for you professionally and academically if you’re not careful. Here’s everything you need to know about citing yourself so you can avoid unintentionally plagiarizing yourself.

Why Self-Citations Are Important

There are several reasons why it’s essential to self-cite when referencing your prior work. If that previous work is published, for example, then quoting from it without proper citation could be a violation of your publishing agreement.

Even if your work is unpublished, it’s inappropriate to reuse prior work without proper citation and identification. If you’re a student, reusing work from a previous assignment without doing any new work deprives you of the learning opportunity, and it may also be a violation of your high school or college’s academic integrity policy.

There’s not much difference between citing your work and citing someone else’s work in most style guides. As a general rule, you cite your previous work in the same way you cite a similar work by another author.

Let’s say you wrote and published a novel. Under most style guides, if you wanted to quote or reference a novel you wrote, you would cite it in the same format as you would cite a novel by anyone else. Likewise, if you wanted to reference a research paper you wrote, you would cite it using the same format as a research paper completed by someone else.

Published vs. Unpublished Work

Whether you’re a content creator getting paid for a piece of work or a student submitting a paper for high school or college credit, you must cite every piece you reference—including published, scholarly sources as well as unpublished works. This is true whether you’re citing your own work or someone else’s.

However, this issue comes up more often when it comes to your own work simply because you’re more likely to possess your own unpublished work than another person’s. However, the American Psychological Association (APA) Style Guide and the Modern Language Association (MLA) Style Guide differ somewhat in handling citations to unpublished work.

How do you determine whether your work is published or unpublished? In most cases, it’s pretty straightforward. If your work has appeared in an anthology, journal, or otherwise been made public, it’s a published work. If it hasn’t appeared anywhere and is solely in your possession, then it’s an unpublished work.

Things get a little fuzzier when you consider the work that you’ve shared online. If you’ve posted it somewhere that it can be accessed by the general public, like an online forum, then it’s been informally published and should be cited as a website.

On the other hand, a private document that can only be accessed by people you authorize using a private link is generally considered unpublished. Unless a stranger could access it without your authorization, your own private work is unpublished.

Under the APA Style Guide, a published work is always cited the same way, whether it’s your own or someone else’s. If the work you are citing is published, cite it as you would a similar publication by another author, even if it’s your own.

However, if you cite your unpublished work, the APA citation style requires you to specify that the work is unpublished. In addition, if you created the work for a particular purpose, you must state that purpose in the citation.

Published Research Paper  – Walter Wombat, a researcher, previously published a research paper in a wildlife journal. Now Walter wants to cite that study in a new paper. He will cite it in the same way as he would another researcher’s published study:

Last Name, First Name (Year of publication). Title of study. Title of Journal, volume number(issue number), page numbers. http://webaddress.com

Wombat, Walter (2018). Wombats in the wild: a study. Wildlife Journal, 47(3), 48-63. http://wombatstudies.org

Unpublished Assignment – Walter also wants to cite a previous assignment from his graduate school coursework in the new research study. Under the APA Style Guide, to cite to an unpublished student assignment, Walter must also identify that the study is unpublished, as well as its purpose:

Last Name, First Name (Year authored). Title of study [Unpublished study submitted for course]. University Name.

Wombat, Walter (2020). Wombat teeth grow forever [Unpublished study submitted for Biology 1001]. Marsupial University.

If Walter also cited other sources in his unpublished study, then he must also cite those sources in the reference list of his new work.

Other examples – Citation styles for different types of sources can be found in the complete  7th edition APA Style Guide  at the Purdue OWL website.

As the APA Style Guide, the rules for citing your own published work are the same as citing someone else’s under the MLA Style Guide. A published work is cited the same way, whether you’re self-citing or citing someone else’s work.

The MLA Style Guide doesn’t explicitly require you to identify an unpublished manuscript or unpublished paper in the reference list. However, you still must identify the origin of an unpublished document, such as the collection where it’s housed or the reason for its creation.

There are plenty of unpublished documents available in public and private museums and personal collections around the world. Your unpublished work is most likely either from your personal collection or submitted for a high school or university assignment.

Published Research Paper  – Walter Wombat is writing an article for a popular science magazine and wants to reference a study he published previously in a peer-reviewed science journal. He will cite it in the same way as if he were citing another person’s published study:

Last Name, First Name. “Title of Article.” Title of Journal, Volume, Issue, Year, pages.

Wombat, Walter. “Wombats in the Wild.” Wildlife Journal, 47, 3, 2018, 48-63.

Unpublished Assignment – Suzie Scholar is writing a reflective piece on her growth as a writer for a college assignment. In it, she wants to reference a piece she wrote for an assignment in high school. While she doesn’t have to specify that the piece is unpublished, Suzie does have to identify its source:

Last Name, First Name. “Paper Title.” Date authored. Class, School, assignment type.

Scholar, Suzie. “My Final Paper.” 1 May 2010. 12th Grade English, Wisdom High School, student paper.

Other Examples – You can find citation formats for different types of sources in the complete MLA Style Guide  at the Purdue OWL website.

Avoiding Self-Plagiarism

To avoid self-plagiarism under any style guide, you must cite all of your sources using in-text citations and a list of works cited. This is true whether you’re citing your own work or someone else’s.

One way to ensure that you’re not accidentally committing self-plagiarism or any other kind of plagiarism is to use a plagiarism checker like Quetext. If you’ve unintentionally quoted or paraphrased from a source without citing it, a good plagiarism checker will flag it for you so you can cite it appropriately.

Quetext’s plagiarism checker takes this one step further by automatically generating the appropriate citation for you, making it easy to avoid unintentional plagiarism.

Sign Up for Quetext Today!

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Citing Your Own Work

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Have you ever been given an assignment and thought, “I’ve written a paper like this before…”? If yes, then you might’ve considered re-using content from that previous paper for your new one. If it’s still relevant and the result of your own work, so why not?

Doing so, however, should be treated with extreme caution, and if done incorrectly can lead to something called “self-plagiarism.” Let’s review how you can self-plagiarism when using work you’ve written before for a new assignment.

What is self plagiarism?

Self-plagiarism is defined as incorrectly citing (or not citing) a piece of your own work in another work you are writing.

There are a few different types of self-plagiarism:

• Word-for-word

The most common type of self-plagiarism occurs is when you copy word-for-word a paper you have already written and insert it into a new assignment. If you take any direct material from an old paper of yours, you must create a citation for the older paper. This applies even when your assignments are for different instructors or courses.

• Salami-slicing

Another type of self-plagiarism is known as, “salami-slicing,” happens when the author of a study separates aspects of the study and publishes it in more than one publication, depending on what the goal of each published article is. Salami-slicing is considered unethical since it doesn’t present a whole, complete presentation of a research study. Segmenting the data into many “slices” could lead to misinterpretations.

• Copyright infringement

Perhaps the most well-known outcome of self-plagiarism is “copyright infringement.” This is when an author publishes work that is copyrighted, only for that writer to take that copyrighted material and publish it elsewhere without citing the original work. Even if the writer was the original author of the copyrighted material, proper referencing to the original is still needed.

How to avoid self-plagiarism

There are a few simple steps a writer can take to avoid committing self-plagiarism:

• Conduct further research

If a new paper assignment you’ve been given is similar to one you have already written, consider conducting further research on the topic. Doing this may open up new concepts and avenues of writing that you had not considered before.

• Consult your old class notes

Instead of copying directly from your old paper, check any old notes or outlines that you created for that class and try to come up with unique ideas to write about, or perhaps a slightly different angle than the one you previously chose.

• Cite your previous work

If you wish to use an older paper you have written on a topic as a source for a new paper, you can cite yourself, just as you would cite any other source you use in your research. Here is how you would do this in some of the most popular citation formats:

Harvard referencing style:

Your Last Name, First Initial. (Year) ‘Title of your paper’. School Name. Unpublished essay.

Harvard example:

Lu, P. (2017) ‘George Washington in early American paintings’. Southern New Hampshire University. Unpublished essay.

APA citation format :

Your Last Name, First Initial. (Year). Title of paper. Unpublished manuscript, University Name.

APA example:

Lu, P. (2017). George Washington in early American paintings. Unpublished manuscript, Southern New Hampshire University.

MLA citation format:

Your Last Name, Your First Name. “Title of Your Paper .”  Year written. Your School’s Name, unpublished paper.

MLA example:

Lu, Patricia. “George Washington in Early American Paintings .” 2017. Southern New Hampshire U, unpublished paper.

Looking for more styles or citing guides? Visit Cite This For Me to access a Chicago citation generator , a guide on how to do an in-text citation , an example of an annotated bibliography , and more!

Self-Citation

Self-Citation Podcast

Self-citation transcript.

Greetings everyone. This is Kurtis Clements with another effective writing podcast. In this episode, I am going to shed some light on self-citation—that is, instances when one would want to cite him or herself in academic work in an effort to avoid plagiarism.

What’s this you ask? Students sometimes want to know if they can cite themselves in a paper or assignment they are working on—that is, they want to know if they can use content they’ve written for one class in another—and while this is a relatively uncommon practice—students aren’t, after all, experts in the fields in which they write papers—protocol exists.

Let’s say that you are working on a paper about cogs and wheels, a subject that you have written about in a couple of prior classes. In fact, you’ve discovered some terrific content about cogs and wheels and have even written several particularly strong paragraphs in a previous paper that you think will fit into your current assignment. You decide to copy and paste two full paragraphs from a previous paper into your new paper. Have you just committed plagiarism?

The answer: yes and no.

What? How can this be? Simply put, the topic of self-citation and plagiarism can be confusing, so let’s break it down. You plagiarize yourself when you reuse work that you have used elsewhere without making anyone aware of this reuse of old content. When you turn in a paper for a class, the expectation is that this work is original and created specifically for a given assignment. If it is not original, it is unethical, and in cases of copyright issues (that is, you are reusing old content not for a class but for publication), it’s illegal. You must not mislead your reader, editor, or professor.

Generally, you can use small portions of your previous work if you cite it properly. This is called self-citation. The citation is required because it must be clear that this work or writing exists somewhere else and that the words or ideas are not original to the current paper or production. If you quote or paraphrase your ideas from a previous paper, in APA, you would cite yourself as the primary author and the work as an unpublished paper. For this self-citation, you must include both an in-text and reference citation like you would for any other source in your paper.

Please take special note of what I said above: It’s ok to use small portions of your previous work. In most cases of university academic writing, “small portions” means a sentence or two. What?!

That’s right: If you do cite yourself—that is, if you use content that you wrote for a previous paper—do so rarely and reuse content sparingly. Why? You ask. Think of it this way: If you are choosing to cite your previous work, it should be because you want to build on an idea you came up with in a previous paper. You should not cite previous work in order to only write a new paper faster.

However, with that said, the real question to think about is should you be using your previous work to begin with? To quote yourself does not lend credibility to your paper unless you are a known and published scholar in the field about which you are writing. Most students don’t fall into this category. Therefore, it is better for the validity of the paper and for student learning to avoid citing yourself unless you truly have an important idea of yours to build upon from a previous paper. Make sense? I am not saying don’t use your own content from a previous paper, but I am saying do so purposefully.

In order to cite yourself, if you decide it is appropriate for your paper, you can either refer to yourself in the third person, Clements (2013) stated, for example, or, if the assignment allows for a more casual personal reference, you could write, “As I discussed in a previous paper. . .” Again, you would include both an in-text and reference citation like you would for any other source in your paper.

One word of caution: You do not want to cite yourself citing someone else. If you want to reuse a quotation or a source from a previous paper, you need to cite that original source again. For example, let’s say you found a scholarly, peer-reviewed resource from an expert in the field, a Dr. Pickle, and you quoted Dr. Pickle in a paper. If you want to reuse that quote, don’t cite yourself, cite Dr. Pickle, who is the expert. This might mean that you have to go find that article again, but it is a best practice to cite—as best as one can—only original sources.

One final reminder: Keep in mind that if you choose self-citation, you should do so to build upon your ideas from a previous paper, not simply reuse the same content in another context. Got it? Good. Oh, I would be remiss if I didn’t also say that when citing yourself, it is wise to consult the course syllabus and/or your professor beforehand just to make sure citing yourself will be ok.

In closing, I want to give special thanks to Melody Pickle, yes the Dr. Pickle from the example; she is real and an expert and her help on this script has been significant.

Happy writing, everyone!

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How should authors cite their own work?

Note: This post relates to content in the eighth edition of the MLA Handbook . For up-to-date guidance, see the ninth edition of the MLA Handbook .

In the works-cited list, authors should cite their own work the same way they would cite any other source. The entry should begin with the name of the author or authors, followed by the title of the work and any publication details.

In their prose, the authors may refer to themselves with pronouns (e.g., In my work . . . or In our own research . . . ). 

For parenthetical citations, authors have two options, as shown in the examples below, which are adapted from the Style Center post “ Reading Is Not One Thing .” They may include their names in the parentheses, as shown in the first example, so that the citation clearly keys to the source in the works-cited list, or they may omit their names, as shown in the second example, since the authorship is understood. 

These findings match what we found in our own research on students’ reading behaviors (Del Principe and Ihara, “‘I’”). or These findings match what we found in our own research on students’ reading behaviors (“‘I’”). Work Cited Del Principe, Annie, and Rachel Ihara. “‘I Bought the Book and I Didn’t Need It’: What Reading Looks Like at an Urban Community College.” Teaching English in the Two-Year College , vol. 43, no. 3, 2016, pp. 229–46.

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Citing a Citation

Let's say there are results of an original study by Denton et al. that you want to cite, but you read about these study results in a book by Beaujot & Kerr. Ideally, you should try to find the original study by Denton et al. and quote or paraphrase from it directly. However, if it is not possible to find or to read Denton et al.'s, you need to do the following: 

In the reference list , provide the citation of the source YOU are using, i.e. the book by Beaujot & Kerr::

Beaujot, R., & Kerr, D. (Eds.). (2007). The changing face of Canada: Essential readings in population. Canadian Scholars’ Press.

In text citation: name the original source and provide a citation for the source YOU use, for example: 

According to Denton et al., ....... ( as cited in Beaujot & Kerr, 2007). 

One study found .... (Denton et al., as cited in Beaujot & Kerr, 2007).

Denton et al. ( as cited in Beaujot & Kerr, 2007) found that .... 

A Citation within a Quote

When you are quoting something and the quote contains a citation within the quote, you can just cite as usual. The reason is that it would not really be possible to use the "cited in" structure. Here is an example:

Actors "are encouraged to become immersed in a character's life (Stanislavski, 1950), an activity that calls for absorption" (Panero et al., 2016, p. 234).

In the above example you are quoting the entire portion that is in red, which consists of:

• what Stanislavski said (and what Panero paraphrased: are encouraged to become immersed in a characters's life)
• what Panero said (an activity that calls for absorption)

You are taking this quote from your source, which is Panero et al.

However, if you were to only use the first part, i.e. "are encouraged to become immersed in a character's life", then you would use the cited in structure as you would only be citing what Stanislavski said:

According to Stanislavski, actors "are encouraged to become immersed in a character's life" (as cited in Panero et al., 2016, p. 234).

Actors are "encouraged to become immersed in a character's life" (Stanislavski; as cited in Panero et al. 2016, p. 234).

In your reference list, you would again put your source, i.e. Panero et al.

Citing Your Own Previous Work

It is very important that you  ALWAYS CHECK WITH YOUR INSTRUCTOR IF YOU ARE ALLOWED TO USE PRIOR COURSE WORK , no matter for which course you did the work previously, or if you took the course at another institution.

Whenever you refer to your own previous work in your new paper, you will need to provide an in-text citation. You must also provide   a reference list entry for your prior work, just like you would for any other source you are using.

For example, let's say your name is Mary Smith, and you wrote an essay for your English 1100 class in 2023 with the title "The effect of texting on literary skills". A year later, you want to write an essay for your Sociology class about "Texting and its impact on interpersonal communication". You want to refer to some of your thoughts and conclusions you wrote about in your English 1100 essay, and you also want to reuse an interview you conducted for and cited in your previous work. You talked to your Sociology instructor and have received permission to do so.

In the r eference list , you will need to put your previous English 1100 paper as a source, and it would look like this:

Smith, M. (2023). The effect of texting on literary skills  [ Unpublished paper] . Department of English, Kwantlen Polytechnic University.

In text citations   are structured depending on whether they refer to your own previous thoughts or to a citation to another source. Here are some suggested ways of citing these: 

Citing your own previous thoughts:  

Smith (2023) concluded that... 

In a 2023 paper Smith discussed...

In a previous paper I concluded that ... (Smith, 2023), but this view does not hold true in the present context.

Citing data/an interview from your prior work (note that although you conducted the interview yourself for your English essay, you are now  reading about it,  and thus you are citing a secondary source):

In an interview, Brown said that he was surprised to hear ... ( as cited in Smith, 2023) .....

When interviewed, Brown revealed he was "stunned that..." ( as cited in Smith, 2023, p. 5)

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How do I cite myself in APA format?

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Answered By: Laurie Bastien Last Updated: Aug 27, 2020     Views: 1214

If you are using information from a previous paper you've written or from a project you've completed in a past assignment or class, it is appropriate to self-cite in order to avoid self-plagiarism.  To cite or quote from a previous work you've created, follow examples for citing an unpublished work.

On a related note, please review school policies on reusing work and contact your instructor with any questions.  Links to school policies are also below.

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Unpublished or Informally Published Reference

Learn how to format references for unpublished or informally published works, including unpublished manuscripts, manuscripts submitted for publication, and self-archived work.

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© 2020 American Psychological Association.

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In-Text Citations: The Basics

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.

Note:  This page reflects the latest version of the APA Publication Manual (i.e., APA 7), which released in October 2019. The equivalent resource for the older APA 6 style  can be found here .

Reference citations in text are covered on pages 261-268 of the Publication Manual. What follows are some general guidelines for referring to the works of others in your essay.

Note:  On pages 117-118, the Publication Manual suggests that authors of research papers should use the past tense or present perfect tense for signal phrases that occur in the literature review and procedure descriptions (for example, Jones (1998)  found  or Jones (1998)  has found ...). Contexts other than traditionally-structured research writing may permit the simple present tense (for example, Jones (1998)  finds ).

APA Citation Basics

When using APA format, follow the author-date method of in-text citation. This means that the author's last name and the year of publication for the source should appear in the text, like, for example, (Jones, 1998). One complete reference for each source should appear in the reference list at the end of the paper.

If you are referring to an idea from another work but  NOT  directly quoting the material, or making reference to an entire book, article or other work, you only have to make reference to the author and year of publication and not the page number in your in-text reference.

On the other hand, if you are directly quoting or borrowing from another work, you should include the page number at the end of the parenthetical citation. Use the abbreviation “p.” (for one page) or “pp.” (for multiple pages) before listing the page number(s). Use an en dash for page ranges. For example, you might write (Jones, 1998, p. 199) or (Jones, 1998, pp. 199–201). This information is reiterated below.

Regardless of how they are referenced, all sources that are cited in the text must appear in the reference list at the end of the paper.

In-text citation capitalization, quotes, and italics/underlining

• Always capitalize proper nouns, including author names and initials: D. Jones.
• If you refer to the title of a source within your paper, capitalize all words that are four letters long or greater within the title of a source:  Permanence and Change . Exceptions apply to short words that are verbs, nouns, pronouns, adjectives, and adverbs:  Writing New Media ,  There Is Nothing Left to Lose .

( Note:  in your References list, only the first word of a title will be capitalized:  Writing new media .)

• When capitalizing titles, capitalize both words in a hyphenated compound word:  Natural-Born Cyborgs .
• Capitalize the first word after a dash or colon: "Defining Film Rhetoric: The Case of Hitchcock's  Vertigo ."
• If the title of the work is italicized in your reference list, italicize it and use title case capitalization in the text:  The Closing of the American Mind ;  The Wizard of Oz ;  Friends .
• If the title of the work is not italicized in your reference list, use double quotation marks and title case capitalization (even though the reference list uses sentence case): "Multimedia Narration: Constructing Possible Worlds;" "The One Where Chandler Can't Cry."

Short quotations

If you are directly quoting from a work, you will need to include the author, year of publication, and page number for the reference (preceded by "p." for a single page and “pp.” for a span of multiple pages, with the page numbers separated by an en dash).

You can introduce the quotation with a signal phrase that includes the author's last name followed by the date of publication in parentheses.

If you do not include the author’s name in the text of the sentence, place the author's last name, the year of publication, and the page number in parentheses after the quotation.

Long quotations

Place direct quotations that are 40 words or longer in a free-standing block of typewritten lines and omit quotation marks. Start the quotation on a new line, indented 1/2 inch from the left margin, i.e., in the same place you would begin a new paragraph. Type the entire quotation on the new margin, and indent the first line of any subsequent paragraph within the quotation 1/2 inch from the new margin. Maintain double-spacing throughout, but do not add an extra blank line before or after it. The parenthetical citation should come after the closing punctuation mark.

Because block quotation formatting is difficult for us to replicate in the OWL's content management system, we have simply provided a screenshot of a generic example below.

Formatting example for block quotations in APA 7 style.

Quotations from sources without pages

Direct quotations from sources that do not contain pages should not reference a page number. Instead, you may reference another logical identifying element: a paragraph, a chapter number, a section number, a table number, or something else. Older works (like religious texts) can also incorporate special location identifiers like verse numbers. In short: pick a substitute for page numbers that makes sense for your source.

Summary or paraphrase

If you are paraphrasing an idea from another work, you only have to make reference to the author and year of publication in your in-text reference and may omit the page numbers. APA guidelines, however, do encourage including a page range for a summary or paraphrase when it will help the reader find the information in a longer work. 

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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 22 April 2024, from https://www.scribbr.co.uk/working-sources/quoting/

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Quoting and integrating sources into your paper

In any study of a subject, people engage in a “conversation” of sorts, where they read or listen to others’ ideas, consider them with their own viewpoints, and then develop their own stance. It is important in this “conversation” to acknowledge when we use someone else’s words or ideas. If we didn’t come up with it ourselves, we need to tell our readers who did come up with it.

It is important to draw on the work of experts to formulate your own ideas. Quoting and paraphrasing the work of authors engaged in writing about your topic adds expert support to your argument and thesis statement. You are contributing to a scholarly conversation with scholars who are experts on your topic with your writing. This is the difference between a scholarly research paper and any other paper: you must include your own voice in your analysis and ideas alongside scholars or experts.

All your sources must relate to your thesis, or central argument, whether they are in agreement or not. It is a good idea to address all sides of the argument or thesis to make your stance stronger. There are two main ways to incorporate sources into your research paper.

Quoting is when you use the exact words from a source. You will need to put quotation marks around the words that are not your own and cite where they came from. For example:

“It wasn’t really a tune, but from the first note the beast’s eyes began to droop . . . Slowly the dog’s growls ceased – it tottered on its paws and fell to its knees, then it slumped to the ground, fast asleep” (Rowling 275).

Follow these guidelines when opting to cite a passage:

• Choose to quote passages that seem especially well phrased or are unique to the author or subject matter.
• Be selective in your quotations. Avoid over-quoting. You also don’t have to quote an entire passage. Use ellipses (. . .) to indicate omitted words. Check with your professor for their ideal length of quotations – some professors place word limits on how much of a sentence or paragraph you should quote.
• Before or after quoting a passage, include an explanation in which you interpret the significance of the quote for the reader. Avoid “hanging quotes” that have no context or introduction. It is better to err on the side of your reader not understanding your point until you spell it out for them, rather than assume readers will follow your thought process exactly.
• If you are having trouble paraphrasing (putting something into your own words), that may be a sign that you should quote it.
• Shorter quotes are generally incorporated into the flow of a sentence while longer quotes may be set off in “blocks.” Check your citation handbook for quoting guidelines.

Paraphrasing is when you state the ideas from another source in your own words . Even when you use your own words, if the ideas or facts came from another source, you need to cite where they came from. Quotation marks are not used. For example:

With the simple music of the flute, Harry lulled the dog to sleep (Rowling 275).

Follow these guidelines when opting to paraphrase a passage:

• Don’t take a passage and change a word here or there. You must write out the idea in your own words. Simply changing a few words from the original source or restating the information exactly using different words is considered plagiarism .
• Read the passage, reflect upon it, and restate it in a way that is meaningful to you within the context of your paper . You are using this to back up a point you are making, so your paraphrased content should be tailored to that point specifically.
• After reading the passage that you want to paraphrase, look away from it, and imagine explaining the main point to another person.
• After paraphrasing the passage, go back and compare it to the original. Are there any phrases that have come directly from the original source? If so, you should rephrase it or put the original in quotation marks. If you cannot state an idea in your own words, you should use the direct quotation.

A summary is similar to paraphrasing, but used in cases where you are trying to give an overview of many ideas. As in paraphrasing, quotation marks are not used, but a citation is still necessary. For example:

Through a combination of skill and their invisibility cloak, Harry, Ron, and Hermione slipped through Hogwarts to the dog’s room and down through the trapdoor within (Rowling 271-77).

Important guidelines

When integrating a source into your paper, remember to use these three important components:

• Introductory phrase to the source material : mention the author, date, or any other relevant information when introducing a quote or paraphrase.
• Source material : a direct quote, paraphrase, or summary with proper citation.
• Analysis of source material : your response, interpretations, or arguments regarding the source material should introduce or follow it. When incorporating source material into your paper, relate your source and analysis back to your original thesis.

Ideally, papers will contain a good balance of direct quotations, paraphrasing and your own thoughts. Too much reliance on quotations and paraphrasing can make it seem like you are only using the work of others and have no original thoughts on the topic.

Always properly cite an author’s original idea, whether you have directly quoted or paraphrased it. If you have questions about how to cite properly in your chosen citation style, browse these citation guides . You can also review our guide to understanding plagiarism .

University Writing Center

The University of Nevada, Reno Writing Center provides helpful guidance on quoting and paraphrasing and explains how to make sure your paraphrasing does not veer into plagiarism. If you have any questions about quoting or paraphrasing, or need help at any point in the writing process, schedule an appointment with the Writing Center.

Works Cited

Rowling, J.K. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.  A.A. Levine Books, 1998.

• Introduction
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APA 7th Edition Citation Guide Previous Coursework

How to cite yourself.

When citing a paper that you wrote for a previous class, consider yourself as the author and your previous course work as an unpublished paper. Include [Unpublished manuscript] in brackets after the title.

Reference Page Format:

Author, (year written). Title [Unpublished manuscript]. Institution.

Reference Page Example:

O’Toole, T. (2019).  An analysis of pre-WWII leaders  [Unpublished manuscript]. Concordia University, St. Paul.  

In-text Citation Examples:

According to O’Toole (2019)... ...(O’Toole, 2019). ...(O’Toole, 2019, p. 4).

Blackboard Lectures and PowerPoints

Sources on Blackboard, such as recorded lectures and PowerPoints, are not available to people outside of your institution. If the audience of your paper is your professor and/or classmates who have access to the content, use the following examples.

If your audience is not enrolled in your course or part of your institution and therefore does not have access to the content, cite the content as a Personal Communication .

Author, A. A. (Year, Month Day). Title [Format]. Blackboard@CSP.  https://csp.blackboard.com/

Neilson, J. (2022, September 1).  What the library can do for you  [PowerPoint Slides]. Blackboard@CSP.  https://csp.blackboard.com/

According to Neilson (2022)... ...(Neilson, 2022).

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Chicago Footnote Referencing - Theology students: Citing yourself and AI

• Chicago Style Rules
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• Citing yourself and AI

Citing Yourself

In very rare cases you might need to quote a short section (no more than 2 sentences) of an assignment you have previously submitted. if this is the case, you should treat the quotation as you would any other source and correctly cite it.* you may also wish to refer to something you have published..

Note: if you have a required number of texts for a Bibliography, your own work does not contribute to this requirement.

First name Family Name, "Title of Essay or Summary of Essay Question" (UNIT CODE Essay, Morling College, Year of assignment).

Bibliography

Family Name, First name. "Title of Essay or Summary of Essay Question." UNIT CODE Essay, Morling College, Year of assignment.

*If you are using EndNote, you will need to create a citation for material that is not formally published. Use “Thesis” as your Reference Type and  fill in the appropriate Fields:

• Title (this could be the Assignment Question or a summary of the question)
• University (this will most likely be Morling College but could be another institution)
• Thesis Type (include the Unit Code [e.g. OT001] and the type of assignment [Essay, Reflection, Tutorial Paper, Book review etc.])

Citing AI-Generated Content

When citing information generated with the assistance of AI tools (such as ChatGPT, Smart Copy), be transparent about the involvement of AI in the work: provide credit to the source just as you would with other types of information.

For student papers and research articles, cite contributions from AI-generated tools in footnote form. You can also make reference in the body of your assignment text. You will need to include:

• the creator of the content (e.g., ChatGPT, Smart Copy)
• the text prompt you used to generate the content in quotation marks (if you included the prompt in the body of your text, you are not required to repeat the prompt in the footnote)
• the organization or developer that created the tool (e.g., OpenAI, Unbounce)
• the date the content was generated
• if you have edited the AI-generated text, indicate this in either your footnote or the body of your text

At present (June 2023), the Chicago Manual of Style instructs you to cite content created by AI generative tools in the text of your assignment and/or in footnote form only (not in your bibliography).

In the case of ChatGPT, the URL provided within the footnote should be the unique URL created by a request to share the conversation that you had, including all of your requests and all of the ChatGPT response. If you initiated more than one conversation thread, the unique URL for each conversation thread should be provided.  

If you obtained AI-enabled editorial assistance through a platform that does not provide the option of creating a URL to share a log of your interaction(s) with the site, you should still acknowledge your use of the application via a footnote at an appropriate point in the assignment, and retain a copy of the pre-edited draft of the assignment that you can provide, if requested, for comparison purposes.

In some cases, it may be appropriate to include a transcript of an AI chat or prompt situation in an appendix. If you are not sure about using AI in an assignment, please contact your lecturer.

• Important note on use of AI (BAT) Guidelines on using AI-generated content in assignments.

Originator of the communication, medium, Day Month, Year: URL [where available]

1 OpenAI's ChatGPT AI language model, responses to questions from author, 28 June, 2023: https://chat.openai.com/share/c2f86c07-43a9-4326-ac9e-a95d9834568b

The following recipe for vegetarian pakoras was generated by OpenAI’s ChatGPT, June 2, 2023.

When asked to list three key marketing strategies for websites, Unbounce’s AI-generator, Smart Copy, indicated that the use of SEO, understanding user experience, and social media engagement were all important methods (edited for style and content).

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• Last Updated: Apr 17, 2024 4:46 PM
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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 906,079 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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