APA Reference Formatting: Quotations

Paraphrasing is a skill you will frequently use in your academic writing and is considered a best practice. It provides greater flexibility in integrating multiple sources into your writing, it can emphasise specific aspects of referenced research, whilst also enabling your marker to gauge your understanding of the subject. Paraphrasing is generally easier to read than multiple direct quotations.

Quoting directly provides precise definitions, conveys memorable points, and retains specific wording from another source, it should however be used sparingly within an appropriate context. When you quote directly, you need to put the quotation within "quotation marks" and include a specific location of where the information sits in the original source (as an in-text citation in your work).

When quoting, you need to include a specific location of the information in the original source (in the in-text citation only).  This can differ depending on the source type you're using. Sometimes you will need to count paragraphs on a webpage, use a time-stamp for audiovisual material, or use a section title. 

A table that shows the range of location abbreviations can be found under the in-text citations tab.

Location information: Paraphrasing

Location information is optional when paraphrasing, although authors are encouraged to include them when it assists the reader to locate the reference in long pieces of text.

Location information: Quotations

Location information is incorporated (into the in-text citation) differently depending on whether it is parenthetical or narrative. For parenthetical citations, we include this information within the brackets; for narrative, we put this information in a separate bracket after the quotation/information.

Narrative:  Name (date) "quotation" (page number).

Parenthetical: (Name, date, page number).

When quoting directly from an audiovisual source, use the time-stamp.

A quotation of 40 or more words should be formatted as a freestanding, indented block of text without quotation marks. Note the location of the final full stop. 

You don't need to include reference list entries for research participant quotations included in your work, however, they are also not treated as personal communications.

Instead, make it obvious in your text that the quotation has come from a participant:

Ethical considerations

It may not be appropriate to use the participants' names in your research (ensure you follow the ethical agreements provided for your research).  Instead, you can use pseudonyms and/or obscure any identifying information to hide participants identities.  You can also provide a collation of the information to anonymise your participants.

Depending on your ethics agreements, you may need to follow similar guidelines for other documents too, for example, instead of "according to the Waikato Hospital's guidelines" "according to the guidelines of a North Island hospital".

When using quotations, it is always recommended that, when possible, the original source of a quotation is located and used, however that is not always possible.

Famous Quotes (no reference required)

Very famous quotes that are easily recognised and very well known do not need to be referenced e.g. "To be or not to be, that is the question".

Quote when original cannot be found

This example is of a quote purported to be from Plato, but it is not possible to find the original as not enough information is provided. 

So within your text, credit Plato as the original author of the quote, but reference the picture above in your reference list, like so:

In-text citation

Reference List

Quote when original can be found

In-text citation

Reference List

If you omit material within a sentence when quoting, you need to use 3 spaced ellipsis points (3 dots), like so:

In-text citation

When omitting material between two sentences, use 4 points. The first point indicates the full stop at the end of the sentence. 

The 3 spaced ellipsis points follow, like so:

In-text citation

There are certain words in the English language that are spelt slightly different depending on where you are e.g. organization (American spelling) vs organisation (British spelling). There may also be spelling mistakes within certain sources as well.

APA rules state that you cite what you sight. That means you keep the spelling exactly as it appears within the quotation.

Changes or Spelling errors

When quoting, you are able to add a word, change a capital letter, indicate a spelling mistake or create emphasis:

• The first letter of the first word in a quotation may be changed to an uppercase or a lowercase letter. This requires no explanation.
• You may sparingly add words in square brackets to illustrate your point. 
• To add emphasis in a quote that wasn't originally there, you can insert the words emphasis added within square brackets.
• To indicate that you know there's a spelling or incorrect word usage in the original quote, you can add sic in square brackets and italicised directly after the error.

Example in-text citation