Textual Support (Quotes, Paraphrases, and Summaries)

OWL Purdue MLA/APA Guides
MLA/APA pages in Little Seagull
MLA/APA guides from Valencia library

Since citing other sources is an important part of demonstrating making a viable academic argument. Let's look at how you will actually include those other sources. The following are the most common ways to use the words and ideas of others in your own writing:

Paraphrasing: This is when you put something into your own words and sentence structure. Lunsford gives some great examples of what is acceptable and unacceptable paraphrasing, but if you are still unsure, please reach out. You still must use in-text citations with paraphrases.

Quoting: Lunsford says quoting is when you bring an author’s direct words into your text. She says to use it when you cannot paraphrase. Use quotation marksand use in-text citations. You will also need to use a signal phrase to introduce the quote. See below for more on signal phrases, but this can be as simple as "Komal writes that...[insert quote here]".

Summaries: This is a significantly shortened version of a passage or chapter and it puts the main idea into your own words. So, we have been doing this all semester. Remember that summaries tell me what a source says, not just that they say it. (So, you won't say "Xuandrea writes about the genres that computer engineers use." Instead you will say something like "Xuandrea writes that computer engineers rely on manuals as a type of genre." You still must use in-text citations with paraphrases.

Check out the chart below for a quick overview. I am using APA in my example, but it will look a little different for MLA.

Types of Ways to Use Other Voices (citations) in Your Work
Type of Support	Definition	In-Text Citation?	Example
Paraphrase	Puts an author's specific idea into your own words and sentence structure	YES	Jones claims that file organization documents were a type of genre. Their purpose was to help group members change paper to documents into electronic formats, but these genres were intimately related to speech genres (Jones, 2016, 305).
Quote	Uses the author's words directly by putting them into quotation marks.	YES	Jones defined coordination as "interactions that seek to create cooperation and develop unified actions among individuals—actions that are in concert with one another (integration).” (302)
Summary	Puts the main idea of the entire passage into your own words	YES	Broadly speaking, Jones found that genre and narrative supported collaboration and cohesion within her group of study (Jones, 2016).

For ALL of these examples, you would have the following FULL citation at the end of the paper.

Jones, N. N. (2016). Found Things: Genre, Narrative, and Identification in a Networked Activist Organization, Technical Communication Quarterly, 25(4), 298-318. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10572252.2016.1228790 (Links to an external site.)

Three Steps for Textual Support

Whenever you are using textual support, there are three steps you must follow:

Introduce the quote using a signal phrase
Use the quote (with an in-text citation)
Explain the quote

For examples, read over the “Sentence Guides for Academic Writers” section at the beginning of Easy Writer (cix-cxxiii), or visit Purdue OWL (Links to an external site.).

Creating In-Text Citations: MLA

When you use the author in your signal phrase, your in-text citation will only include the page number.

According to Greene, “here is my quote” (35).

When you do not use the author in a signal phrase, you need to include their name in the in-text citation before the page number. You will not include a comma or any other punctuation between the name and page.

The article states that “here is my quote” (Greene 35).

Creating In-Text Citations: APA

When you use the author in your signal phrase, you must put the year directly after the author's name in parenthesis. For your your in-text citation, include the page number with "p." before it.

According to Greene (2017), “here is my quote” (p. 35).

When you do not use the author in a signal phrase, you need to include their name in the in-text citation, followed by the year, and the page, with a comma between each.

According to the article, “here is my quote” (Greene, 2017, p. 35).

Creating a Full Citation

When it comes to citing on your Works Cited or References page (MLA or APA), use the following guide below. If a source does not have one of the pieces of information below, you simply skip it; that is not the same as not recognizing what you need to cite!

Citing in MLA:

Author’s Last Name, Author’s First Name. “Title of Article.” Title of Anthology, edition, edited by Editor’s Name, Publisher, Publication Year, pp. page numbers.

Citing in APA:

Author’s Last Name, Author’s First Initial. (Year of publication). Title of article. In Editor’s Name(s) (Eds.) Title of anthology (edition, pp. page numbers). Publisher.