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Academic quotations can be combined with a reference in various ways, each with its own challenges and pitfalls
SOURCES OF GRAMMAR PROBLEMS IN QUOTATION-WRITING
Quotations tell a reader three different things: [1] the thought(s) of the quoted person(s), [2] the wording used by the quoted person(s), and [3] the fact that the quoting writer is not the originator of the quoted thought(s) and wording. The first and third of these messages can also be communicated without quoting, by means of changed wording (see 80. How to Paraphrase). Quotations are preferred when there is a special reason – good or bad – for not changing the original wording (see 127. When to Use Indirect Speech).
Academic quotation writing involves copying the quoted words from a source text, indicating the original writer by means of an abbreviated reference – e.g. Shakespeare or Jones (2015, p. 64) – and finding words to link these two pieces of information together. The first step often causes grammar errors because the intense care and concentration that accurate copying needs is often underestimated. The second requirement, reference-writing, is considered briefly within this blog in the posts 76. Tenses of Citation Verbs and 197. The Language of Bibliographies. It is the third step, the link language, that the present post is about.
The language that links a reference to a quotation will essentially express the idea of saying or thinking. Often it will be a verb, but various other possibilities exist too. One problem posed by link language is the choice of tense when a verb is used. This is the focus of 76. Tenses of Citation Verbs. Here, the focus is on the different ways in which a verb can be linked to a quotation, and on the use of other types of link language. Attention is given first to wording with quotations comprising a sentence or more, and then to wording with shorter ones.
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WHOLE-SENTENCE QUOTATIONS
Quotations range in size from a single word to a paragraph or longer. Those that are a sentence or more seem slightly easier to report than shorter ones. This may be because their sentence nature necessitates no other words in a reporting sentence than the reference and the words linking them to it. Verb-based link wording is very possible:
(a) Sim (2019, p. 6) cautions that “the size of a vehicle is no sure guide to its fuel consumption”.
(b) Ali (2017, p. 5) makes the criticism that “most social benefits promote a culture of dependency”.
In the first example here, the verb cautions accompanies that between an imaginary reference Sim (2013, p.6) and sentence-length quotation. In (b), the verb makes and speech noun the criticism accompany that in the same way. The use of a speech noun is necessary in (b) because the speech verb CRITICISE is one that does not allow a following that (see 279. Grammatical Differences between Citation Verbs, #4).
The use of that before a quoted statement may seem surprising given that it is normally associated with indirect, not direct, speech. The reason why it is possible is that quoted statements, despite their direct form, are nevertheless reports just as indirect statements are – they are not dialogue within a narrative. Note the absence of a comma after that – quotations cannot have one any more than indirect speech can (see 50. Right and Wrong Comma Places).
When reporting that is used in its more familiar way, after a verb introducing an indirect statement, it can of course be left unmentioned but understood. However, after a verb introducing a quotation, like cautions in (a), it can only be dropped if a comma is used in its place. After a quotation-introducing noun like criticism in (b), that cannot normally be dropped at all, just as it cannot after a noun introducing a non-quoted report.
Note that that cannot introduce a quoted question any more than it can introduce an ordinary direct question or an indirect one (see 57. Indirect Questions in Formal Writing).
An alternative way of writing a sentence like (a), where a quotation is the object of a simple linking verb like cautions, is with a starting as (As Sim[…] cautions, “…”). The usage is the same as when as introduces a report of the indirect kind: there must be a comma and no that before the quotation (writing that after a starting as is a frequent grammar error: see 133. Confusions of Similar Structures 1, #4); and the implicit message will often be that the writer agrees with the reported point (see 183. Statements between Commas, #3).
In addition, verbs that can, like CAUTION, combine directly with that can also go with their subject (without as or that) between commas or brackets, splitting a quotation into two segments:
(c) “The size of a vehicle”, Sim (2013, p. 6) cautions, “is no sure guide to its fuel consumption”.
This option is particularly common when the quoted writer has already been referenced, so that the part in brackets above can be dropped.
Three verbs that are usable only with quotations (i.e. not with indirect speech) are PUT IT, PHRASE IT and QUOTE. The first two have to precede the quoted words, with either as before (as X puts it, “…”), or as follows and a colon after (X puts it as follows: “…”) (see 190. Special Uses of “it“, #4). QUOTE accompanies a quotation taken not from its source text but from another writer. It thus needs two references: one (its subject) indicating the other writer (W), and one (its object) indicating the source (S). A typical use with whole-sentence quotations is W quotes S as follows: “…” .
Besides verbs, there are some multi-word prepositions that can be used instead to link a reference to a sentence-length quotation. One, according to, is usable in the same way as with indirect reports, and similarly seems able in some cases to imply disagreement, so that it should not normally be used if the quoted words are one’s own (see 107. The Language of Opinions). In the words of is specific to quotations. The start of (a), for example, could be rewritten In the words of Sim (2013, p. 6), “…”.
Finally, it is possible, as with indirect reports, to place the entire reference (including the author’s name) by itself in brackets directly after the quotation:
(d) It has been argued that “the work-shy see an opportunity to stay in bed” (Lee, 2011, p. 18).
In these cases, the quotation will still typically need some words before it, including usually a reporting verb like has been argued above. Since the subject of this verb – the reference – is being mentioned later, the passive voice will often be necessary. This will turn the quotation into the verb’s subject, necessitating the use of the “dummy” it subject above in order to preserve the word order (see 103. Representing a Later Statement with “it”).
An alternative to a reporting verb is a related “action” noun – argument above – necessitating a starting there instead of it (There is an argument that…: see 161. Special Uses of “There” Sentences, #5).
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PART-SENTENCE QUOTATIONS
There are two main types of part-sentence quotation. In one, the quoting writer is not interested in the source words around the quoted part (probably because they are less striking or relevant), and simply wishes to leave them out. In the other type, the non-quoted words do need to be reported but there is a practical reason why they cannot be included in the quotation, so that they must instead be represented by alternative wording.
The first of these types tends to be quoted as a noun or noun phrase occupying one of the typical noun positions in a sentence. In the following example, it is the object of a verb:
(e) It is fashionable among development theorists to speak of a “population explosion”.
SPEAK OF is one of various verbs that might have this type of quotation as its object. Others include MENTION, HIGHLIGHT and REFER TO…AS (for more possibilities, see 150. Verb Choices with Reported Speech). In the next example, the same quotation is the subject of its verb:
(f) “Population explosion” is a term used by Smith (2016, p. 34).
The second type of part-sentence quotation, alongside which the rest of the original sentence is reported without being quoted, becomes necessary for any of various possible reasons. One is the presence within the original sentence of a referring word like it that links with something in the original text but nothing in the new context, so that it would not be understood if quoted exactly. Another is original wording of such length that the quoting writer needs to summarise some of it. A third is grammar within the original sentence that cannot combine with the new surrounding words.
Here is an example of a part-sentence quotation that is accompanied by a paraphrase of the rest of its original sentence (underlined):
(g) Peters (2015, p. 59) writes that examples in the ancient world “took the form of actions based in the past”.
This paraphrase (underlined) is of the subject of the quoted verb (took), perhaps because the original was a pronoun.
To illustrate how the grammar of a new context can cause part of the original wording of a sentence to be paraphrased, consider how the following quotation might be adapted after the introductory words Ali (2017, p. 5) criticises …:
(h) … “most social benefits promote a culture of dependency”.
Sentence (b) showed how this quotation can be kept unchanged by introducing it with an alternative to criticises. To use that verb without intervening words, part of the quotation must be paraphrased, for example like this:
(i) Ali (2017, p. 5) criticises most social benefits as promoting “a culture of dependency”.
Here, because CRITICISE must have an object, most social benefits has been given this role, and this has forced the verb promote in (h) to be given the -ing ending and placed after as, thus becoming an object complement (see 10. Words with Unexpected Grammar 1, #g). The need to change promote excludes it from the quotation, and makes its subject social benefits awkward to include there too.
Most other verbs like CRITICISE also need as + -ing instead of that, but note BLAME and WARN, which utilise prepositions (BLAME sb FOR sth or sth ON sb; WARN sb OF sth – see 123. Prepositional Verbs Containing a Noun).
Finally, the nature of part-sentence quotations often makes them easier than whole-sentence ones to place before rather than after their reference. In the following example, this seems neater than using a reporting verb like says that:
(j) The “lottery of the streets” (Lopez, 2004) is an all too inevitable consequence of poverty for children in many less developed parts of the world.
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