What are quotations and why are they useful?

A quotation then, like in this example, is when the exact or lightly modified words of one or many authors are provided within a text. Quotations may be written, usually in the context of academic writing (although quotes can be used in more informal styles too), or they may be used in direct reported speech – in which case the speaker may use the double-finger quotations mark gesture to indicate that they are quoting someone verbatim (word-for-word).

It’s useful to use quotations in academic writing for three primary reasons. The first reason is that using both quotations and paraphrases in a piece of writing makes that writing more dynamic and therefore more engaging to read. With this in mind, a good writer should use quotations carefully and at the right moment to improve the style and readability of their research. Secondly, quotations are useful in providing a distinct and clear source voice, working to further separate the writer from the quoted source. Perhaps that writer has chosen to include the original author’s words because of their poignancy or elegancy, or because those words are particularly famous or pertinent. The final reason that quotations are useful for the writer is that they provide strong and verifiable support for an argument. While a paraphrase could have been misinterpreted by the writer, the direct words of an author or source can be directly interpreted by a reader and as such may provide more convincing and less refutable evidence. There’s quite a lot of variation in exactly how and when quotations are used in academic writing however, and so these issues are covered in some detail in Chapters 2 and 3.