12. Layout of quotations

12.1 Very short quotations

Quotations of a few words should be incorporated into a longer sentence like this:

• Kang (1994: 29) uses the term ‘body labour’ to refer to the provision of body-related services and the emotional labour which often accompanies that practice.

or

• Kang’s term, ‘body labour,’ refers to the provision of body-related services and the emotional labour which often accompanies that practice (1994:29).’

Always reference the source when you quote from a text.

12.2 Quotations of up to three lines

These may also be incorporated into your text. They should be preceded by a colon or

comma when appropriate:

• Wilson (1967:168) creates a compelling image of turn-of-the-century Britain: ‘Little to eat, long hours, dangerous, dirty work for not only adults but also children.’

The colon or comma is not needed if a word such as that, which, whether introduces the quotation. In this case, the quotation functions as a subordinate clause and is an integral part of the wider sentence. When the quotation appears within a sentence, the final full stop should appear outside the quotation marks, even if the full stop is part of the original sentence.

A page number in brackets should go inside the full stop when the quotation is run

on in the text:

• Wilson creates a compelling image of turn-of-the-century Britain. He describes it as involving, ‘Little to eat, long hours, dangerous, dirty work for not only adults but also children’ (1967:168).

12.3 Quotations longer than three lines

These should be set apart in an indented paragraph of their own. Leave a line, indent the

whole paragraph one tab space from the margin, and set out the passage without quotation

marks, except for those that may appear in the passage quoted:

• The insertion of Marxism into the Western academy in the mid-1960s also significantly, and not unironically, contributed to a growing concern with culture. That circumstance has, of course, arisen largely in relation to the mainly Marxist problem of the persistence, recently the expansion, of capitalism. Specifically, in so far as capitalism should have collapsed by virtue of its own economic weight, according to most nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Marxist theories, then its continuance and present expansion have to be explained by non-economic factors. (Robertson 1992: 42)

After an indented quote there is no need to indent the first line of text, unless you intend to

start a new paragraph, which is not recommended. You should have a lot to say on the same

topic following such an important quote.

12.4 Ellipses

To signal that you have omitted a short section of a quote use ellipses in square brackets

[…]. The brackets signal that these ellipses are yours:

• The insertion of Marxism into the Western academy in the mid-1960s also significantly […] contributed to a growing concern with culture. That circumstance has, of course, arisen largely in relation to the mainly Marxist problem of the persistence, recently the expansion, of capitalism. Specifically, in so far as capitalism should have collapsed by virtue of its own economic weight, according to most nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Marxist theories, then its continuance and present expansion have to be explained by non-economic factors. (Robertson 1992: 42)

Make sure that the quote still makes grammatical sense in its own right. You must also make

sure that you do not corrupt the content of the author’s original sentence. Only use ellipses to

travel a short distance within a text. Use it to join sections of the same sentence, or possibly

adjoining sentences. If you wish to quote clauses or phrases that are further apart, do so in

two separate quotations. Do not use ellipses to indicate a large section of text which all

seems relevant to your argument, but which you cannot be bothered to sift through for the

important phrases or sentences:

X The insertion of Marxism into the Western academy in the mid-1960s also significantly, and not unironically, contributed to a growing concern with culture. […] In so far as capitalism should have collapsed by virtue of its own economic weight, according to most nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Marxist theories, then its continuance and present expansion have to be explained by non-economic factors. (Robertson 1992: 42