A direct quote It is a form of content borrowing in which another person’s words are taken literally, that is, without making any modifications.
This action is called referring, and, through certain formal marks, the reader can know when he is reading an author and when he is reading the texts that author investigated. In addition, it provides information keys that allow you to go to the original text from which the words were taken to continue delving into the subject.
Whenever we take an idea that has already been published and make use of it, or that we investigate to give rise to our own ideas, we must give an account of where everything comes from and differentiate what is ours from what is foreign. Otherwise, we will be incurring a plagiarisma form of intellectual dishonesty that can lead to penalties and problems, since plagiarism is a form of theft.
Both the textual citations and the final bibliography of a text are prepared following standardized methodological models. The most widespread currently are the APA (English American Psychological Association) and MLA (English Modern Language Association) standards.
Types of direct quotation
- short quotes (less than 40 words). They must be incorporated into the text, without interrupting its flow or layout. They are enclosed in quotation marks (which indicate the start and end of the citation) and are accompanied by a reference to the bibliographic data of the original text, which is cited in its entirety in the bibliography.
- long dating (40 words or more). Long citations should be placed in a separate paragraph, set off from the left margin of the page with one indent greater than the body of the text and one point less in font size. In this case, no quotes are required. After the citation, the corresponding bibliographical reference must be included.
In both citation formats, references must include:
- Author’s last name. It is the first data offered to identify the source text. In some cases, if the author has been named before the citation or it is clear to whom it belongs from the context, this information may be omitted from the parentheses.
- Year of publication of the text. This is particularly important if there are several cited texts by the same author, since they can be distinguished by year. In case there is more than one of the same year, they are differentiated by adding a lowercase letter after the number without spaces, starting with the a (for example: 2004a).
- Number of pages cited. Sometimes they are preceded by the abbreviation “p.” or “p.” If there are several pages, the first and last ones are cited, separated by a hyphen (for example: pages 12-16). In case of more than one page but discontinuous, commas are used (for example: pages 12, 16).
special signs
In both forms of textual citations, some of the following signs, abbreviations or characters may be present:
- Brackets . The appearance in the middle of a short or long quote of a text in brackets means that this is not part of the quote, but belongs to the researcher, who is forced to clarify or add something so that the quoted text can be understood correctly.
- ibid. or ibid. This expression in Latin means “right there” and is used in the reference to indicate to the reader that a textual quotation belongs to the book cited immediately before.
- quote. This Latin locution means “work cited” and is used in cases where there is only one author’s text consulted, so that the already mentioned bibliographic data is avoided and only the page number is varied.
- et al. This Latin abbreviation is used for works with a main author and numerous collaborators, too many to be listed in their entirety. Therefore, the first author’s last name is cited and accompanied by this abbreviation.
- Ellipses between parentheses (…) or square brackets . The appearance in the middle of a short or long quote of these signs indicates to the reader that a part of the original text has been omitted in the quote.
Examples of short quotes
- As we can see in Foucault’s research (2001), the notion of madness is an integral part of reason, since “there is no civilization without madness” (p. 45).
- In addition, “cultural consumption in Latin America reaches its maximum degree in relation to the flow of political and commercial discourses, and not, as in Europe, articulated from the nation States” (Jorrinsky, 2015, p. 8).
- It is convenient, in this sense, to turn to psychoanalysis: “The doctrine of being is manifested as a result of the introjection of language in the individual” (Tournier, 2000, p. 13).
- This is what Elena Vinelli affirms in her prologue to the work, when she argues that “it is the sociocultural construction of genders that differentiates the feminine from the masculine subjectivity” (2000, p. 5), giving us to understand the feminist face that underlies Sara Gallardo’s novel.
- Not much more can be expected from these investigations, then, except “the brief disappointment of finding the unsuspected truth”, as Evers (2005, p. 12) states in his famous research journal.
Examples of long quotes
- Thus, we can read in Gallardo’s novel (2000):
But the women always pass in groups. I hid and waited. Mauricia passed by with her jug and I dragged her. She every day she ran away after her to find me, trembling with fear of her husband, sometimes early and sometimes late, to that place that I know. In the house that I made by my hand, to live with my wife, in the mission of the Norwegian gringo she lives with her husband (p. 57).
- To this it is convenient to contrast the vision of the French author:
In universal religions, such as Christianity and Buddhism, fear and nausea prelude the escapades of a fiery spiritual life. Now, this spiritual life, which is based on the reinforcement of the first prohibitions, nevertheless has the meaning of the party (Bataille, 2001, p. 54).
- Writing constitutes a meeting and disagreement point of the most positive and most romantic looks around the literary fact. In this sense, the distinction made by Sontag (2000) is useful:
Here is the big difference between reading and writing. Reading is a vocation, a trade in which, with practice, one is destined to become more and more adept. As a writer, what one accumulates is above all uncertainties and anxieties (p. 7).
- This concept of “becoming” can be found scattered throughout the philosopher’s work. However, elucidating him seems to be a complicated matter:
To become is never to imitate, nor to act like, nor to adapt to a model, be it that of justice or that of truth. There is never a term from which one starts, nor to which one arrives or must arrive. Neither are two terms that are interchanged. The question “What is your life?” it is particularly stupid, since as someone becomes, what they become changes as much as they do (…) No more binary machines: question-answer, masculine-feminine, man-animal, etc. (Deleuze, 1980, p. 6).
- Thus, in the correspondence between Sigmund Freud and Albert Einstein, it is possible to read the following:
You are much younger than I am, and I can hope that by the time you reach my age you will be among my ‘supporters’. Since I will not be in this world to verify it, I can only anticipate that satisfaction now. You know what I’m thinking now: “Proudly anticipating such a high honor, I enjoy now…” . Cordially and with unwavering admiration and respect, Sigmund Freud (1932, p. 5).
Paraphrase or quote?
The paraphrase is the reinterpretation of a foreign text, expressed with the words of the author who takes it. In this case, a researcher reads another author’s ideas and then explains them in his own words, while still attributing authorship where appropriate.
In some cases, the paraphrased name of the author is usually added between parentheses to clarify that the ideas are not their own, but taken from another site.
A textual citation, on the other hand, is a borrowing of the original text in which the referred text is not intervened or modified at all. However, in both cases the authorship of the original text is respected: plagiarism is never a valid option.
Examples of paraphrasing
- As has been said in numerous books on quantum physics, the absolute laws of the universe with which modern man tried to explore and understand it turn out to be much more flexible and relative (Einstein, 1960) than was supposed.
- It is not, however, that the new national ideals come from the most conservative wing of society, but that it plays a paradoxical alternative role in Latin America today compared to left-wing populisms (Vargas Llosa, 2006) that they besieged it during the so-called “long decade”.
- It should be noted that, however, sometimes a thing is one thing and nothing more (Freud, quote.), so it is convenient to know how to abort the psychoanalytic interpretation of art in time, before falling into biographical determinism.
- Anthropological trends in Southeast Asia, as numerous anthropologists have already pointed out, contains the elements of minority cultural transit that make it attractive to visitors from a hegemonic culture (Coites et al.1980), but not so for its local neighbors.
- In addition, Bataille (2001) has been clear in this regard, distancing his position from the mortuary fascination typical of the post-romantics, opposing the fascination for violence with work as ordering and repression.
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