If you have to write an essay, whether it is at school, university, or professional level, then you have to use a textual quotation to give it a better result. In case you have no idea how to add quotes in an essay, don’t worry because in this article you will find the help you need so that you can do it quickly and easily.
Many students request “write my essay” because they fear plagiarism, in case they need to use quotes in their paper. There is nothing wrong with using essay writing services, but we want to help you figure out how to write the best essay possible on your own.
When writing academic texts, such as research and scientific articles, as well as any other type of writing, it is very important to recognize the origin of the information presented. Otherwise, you would be resorting to a fault that may even have legal consequences, since in the eyes of the whole world it would be plagiarism.
Applying a system for citation references in your research or essay will give solidity to your statements and hypotheses, in addition to providing reliability to your work. Thus, in a world where almost everything seems to be already said, it is quite rare to find an essay, a paper, or research that does not have bibliographic citations. Most likely it is a text with ideas taken from somewhere else.
What is the purpose of quotations in an essay?
The quotation consists of the mention of a certain phrase, idea, or text, which is used to give the reader clarity about the origin of certain information. This will allow the reader to be able to go directly to the sources if they are cited correctly. The omission of this reference is the one that is punished because it would be a kind of deception that violates intellectual rights.
For the text of an essay to have a more professional and serious touch, it is necessary to include information from various sources, such as books, articles, or encyclopedias. And that’s precisely what essay quotes are for. To give you a clearer idea of the concept you are trying to explain, you can only quote the following:
- Another person’s idea, opinion, or theory;
- Word references;
- Third party’s words;
- Data, graphics, images, or any content that is not public.
How to make a textual quotation in an essay?
Several details should be taken into account to make a textual quotation in an essay optimally and simply. Although it only consists of adding a text in the essay, the steps to carry out this process with more details are as follows:
- Add the last name and first name of the original author;
- Enter the year of publication;
- Add the name of the book;
- Write the name of the publishing house that published the book.
The most widely used format for referencing bibliographic citations in the world of social sciences and behavioral sciences is the APA, which was developed by the American Psychological Association (APA) in 1840.
APA has established a series of rules that you must follow to the letter if you do not want to have problems when applying to any academic journal that requires APA. They are usually very strict with this type of regulation, which is why many papers end up being rejected by the institution or the related academic committee.
Here are some of the most important rules that you should keep in mind when writing your essay if it will develop any topic of social sciences:
- Place the respective reference every time you use a source in your essays, both directly within the text, as well as in a list of references that should go at the end of all pages, but before the appendices section;
- The reference that is placed directly in the text, when it is a paraphrase or a synthesis that you took from another author, you must specify, in parentheses, the last name of the author of the essay, followed by a comma and then the year in which it was published;
- If the reference is a quotation taken verbatim from another research, article, essay, or work, you must indicate, after the author’s last name, as in the previous case, a comma and the number of pages in which the information referred to is found;
- This information, by the way, is not only written in parentheses. If the author’s name was given in the same sentence or immediately before, you can omit it and place the missing one in parentheses;
- If you want to reference a text that does not have a page number (as is the case with many that are currently browsing the web, for example), you can use the number of the paragraph in which it is found, and if it does not have this type of information either, we recommend you count the paragraphs from the title onwards.
We hope you have managed to clear up all those doubts you had on this subject. Now you can make textual quotations in an essay, it is not complicated and you only have to follow the guidelines mentioned in this post.
