There’s really only two occasions when it’s OK to include a quotation in an essay. The first is if you are quoting someone famous saying something in a famous way. You wouldn’t paraphrase Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream…” speech, or a line of Amanda Gorman’s poetry; you’d quote it directly. The other occasion is when you are quoting an extract of qualitative data; something said by a participant or one of the people the research is about. If you are describing research about people with disabilities, people who have experienced trauma, members of the Roma community, etc, you shouldn’t put words in their mouth but let them speak in their own words.

For everything else, you should paraphrase. Explain the ideas of textbook authors, journal article authors etc. in your words. Paraphrasing, rather than quoting, demonstrates that you understand what they meant. You should also explain why you chose these ideas to answer the question, rather than simply quoting and leaving the reader to guess why you chose that quotation.

I’ve attached a downloadable worksheet which guides you through the process of teasing apart a quotation to help you paraphrase it rather than quote it. I’ve adapted the worksheet with permission from an activity by Natalie Lancer of unicoach.org I highly recommend Natalie’s workshops for academic writing.

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