Quotations & Referencing

Use quotes selectively. Overusing quotes, especially in short research papers, simply makes it difficult for your reader to determine what it is that you are trying to argue. Only quote an author when the wording is somehow particularly significant or revealing. Do not use a quotation to convey basic information that you could easily put into your own words. Quotations of more than three lines should be single-spaced and indented. These "blocked" quotes do not require quotations marks. Also, use an ellipsis (...) if you wish to remove a portion of the quote from the middle of a line, or if you remove a whole sentence between separate quoted sentences. You do not need an ellipses at the beginning or end of a quote.

Whenever you use a quotation or an idea from another author, you must provide a citation. You can use either endnotes or footnotes (refer to your software manual for instructions on how to insert these). You should also provide a bibliography of all the materials you used to prepare your essay, whether or not you ended up citing all of them in the text.

For precise guidelines on how to cite sources in your essays, please refer to the Department of History's Essay Guide.