A direct quotation is a report of the exact words of an author or speaker put inside quotation marks. Using a direct quotation (also called word-for-word quotation) from someone else’s writing can be powerful, but it should be used thoughtfully and for the right purpose. In humanities subjects, like English, you may be expected to use quotations a lot more than in science and social science subjects.
Scroll down for our recommended strategies and resources.
Direct quotations should normally be used sparingly and only when you really need to pay attention to the author’s language. For a short, but comprehensive, overview of everything connected to quoting, see this guide or this video:
Normally you would integrate quotes into your sentence, and put quotation marks around them. However, for a longer quote of more than two lines, you would indent the quote instead of using quotation marks. See this guide on how to format short and long quotes:
Sometimes people include many direct quotes because they are not confident about putting the text into their own words, and don’t want to risk plagiarising. This isn’t a good strategy as the assignment becomes a patchwork of other people’s voices and not their own. See our page for more on how to be confident when paraphrasing:
For more details on how to cite quotations in the text of your assignments using the appropriate referencing style for your subject, see the Library's page on referencing: