Once you have gathered outside information (from books, articles, websites, etc.) there are two ways in which you can incorporate them into your paper: direct quotes or paraphrasing.

Direct Quotes

When using a direct quote, you will copy the exact words the author used, put those words in quotation marks, and include the citation information as follows: (Open each example to view)

However, any direct quote that is more than 40 words long must be put into a 'block quote' by starting on a new line, indenting every line of the quote by .5 inch, and not including quotation marks, as seen in the image below:

Screenshot showing a blockquote with the signal phrase underlined, the 1/2 inch indentation space circled, and the parenthetical citation following the ending punctuation underlined.

Paraphrase

When paraphrasing, you will reword the author's ideas into your own words. Remember that the idea still came from the author, so it is imperative to still give them credit, thus you will include citation information as follows: (Open each example to view)

Remember! Every in-text citation must correspond to an entry on the References list, and every entry on the References list must correspond to at least one in-text citation in the body of your paper.

For your convenience, the next document contains more detailed examples of in-text citations.