A Writer’s Guide to Adding Quotations to Articles

“A very wise quote is a spectacular waterfall! When you see it, you feel its power!” That quote from the Turkish novelist Mehmet Murat ildan aptly sums up the impact effective quotations can have in articles. Quoting speech or text-based sources can enhance articles by humanizing content, supporting arguments, and adding more perspective.

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It’s especially important to include quotations in historical and news articles to provide further insight into things discussed. Here, we’ll look at how you can add quotations to your articles.

Quotations can be a useful tool for numerous reasons. Firstly, because they add a more human touch to articles. For example, quoting what people who’ve experienced historical events have said about them is a good way to bring historical pieces to life. Directly quoting what people say can also reveal more about particular events or highlight opinions in news articles.

Adding quoted material is a good way to support arguments and points raised within articles. For example, you can quote important passages from documents and letters to highlight historical evidence that supports your narrative. Or add verbal (speech) quotations from significant figures of the past or present that support the narrative.

Another good reason to add quotes is to enhance descriptions and details within your articles. For example, quoting what a company CEO, director, developer, or other representative has said about a new product or service can expand upon your descriptions of it. These “straight from the horse's mouth” quotations from company people can provide more details about new products and services.

Finally, adding more intriguing words of wisdom quotations can be a good way to draw attention to topics or themes covered in articles. The father of Disraeli, a former UK prime minister, is quoted as saying, “The wisdom of the wise, and the experience of ages, may be preserved by quotation.” Thus, some interesting quotes can be quite poetic.

The basic rule for adding direct quotes is that they must always have quotation marks around them. Opening and closing quotation marks highlight the beginning and end of quoted passages. In American English, you should add double quotation marks (“66 and 99”) around quotes included within paragraphs.

However, this rule doesn’t apply to block quotations. A block quote is a longer quotation separated from the rest of an article’s text with its own exclusive paragraph. The Associated Press and APA style guides agree that a suitable minimum length for block quotes is 40 words. Quotation marks are not necessary for block quotes because they are indented on new lines, separated from surrounding paragraphs.

You should always add a comma directly before the start of a quotation when introducing short, one-sentence quotes. However, the Associated Press style advocates adding a colon before quotations two sentences or longer. Colons should always be used when introducing block quotes. A short quote integrated within a sentence that’s not directly introduced does not need to be preceded by a comma. Here are some examples:

Quotation sources should be attributed in some way, as in the examples above. If the quote is from a well-known person or historical figure, make it clear who exactly said it. Or add general references for quotes from people who aren’t well known.

Full stops (periods) and commas at the end of quotes should always be included within quoted material for American English, as shown in the examples above. However, semicolons and colons at the ends of quotes should go outside quotation marks. Include question marks within quotes only when the quotations are questions. If not, add the question mark to the end of the sentence outside the closing quotation mark.

Adding quotations can be more confusing when they include their own quoted speech or text. In this case, we must add single quotation marks (‘ and ’) for the quoted material within the quote. For example, a player comment from this Reddit post source says, “Hey, I've been getting an error code that reads, ‘You were removed from the match due to internet lag, your IP or machine, VPN usage, or for cheating.’” That quote includes a quoted error message for which there are single quotation marks.

It’s quicker and easier to copy and paste text passages to quote into articles rather than manually typing them. All Windows and Mac computers have hotkeys (keyboard shortcuts) for copying and pasting text. You can utilize those hotkeys to copy selected passages from a web browser into your word processor.

Windows PC users can copy and paste text with the Ctrl + C and Ctrl + V keyboard shortcuts. Select any text passage you want to quote with your mouse cursor and select Ctrl + C to copy. Click inside a document within your word processor and press Ctrl + V to paste the copied text in. Command + C and Command + V are the equivalent copy-and-paste hotkeys for macOS users.

Alternatively, you can copy and paste text with context menu options. Select the text to quote in your web browser, right-click your mouse, and select the Copy option. Then, right-click inside your word processor to select a Paste option.

The text you copy on a Windows 11 or 10 PC is copied to a clipboard. You can view multiple copied text snippets on that clipboard by pressing the Windows logo + V keyboard shortcut. Click on a copied passage there to paste it into a word processor.

Copied passages will sometimes retain unwanted text formatting from their websites. One way you can remove such formatting is to paste copied text into the Windows Notepad first. Notepad is a plain-text editor that removes all fancy formatting it doesn’t support from pasted text. You can find and open that app by typing Notepad into the Windows search tool and selecting it from there.

Some word processors also include options you can select to paste passages into them without any website text formatting retained. For example, Microsoft Word has a Keep Text Only option you can select. Paste text into that word processor with the Ctrl + V hotkey and click Ctrl to select Paste Text Only.

You can get your quotations from any source. However, numerous quote websites are good sources for finding interesting quotations from more famous people and historical figures. Those websites are like directories that contain thousands of intriguing quotations for you to copy and paste into your articles.

The Quotations Page is one such website. You can browse through that site’s quotes by clicking Author Index. That will open a page from which you can click links for people to view their quotes. Then, copy and paste the quotations from there to include in your articles.

Aside from the Quotations Page, AZ Quotes, QuoteFancy, Quotes.net, and QuoteGarden are similar sites with large directories of quotes. QuoteFancy is a slightly more novel website because it also provides free-to-use quote images for all quotations it includes. QuoteFancy allows you to use up to 500 of those creative files per blog or website with appropriate attribution.

Although I don’t recommend stuffing articles with quoted material, it’s certainly good practice to add quotations when appropriate, as covered above. Adding effective quotes can help to breathe more life into your articles. Quotations can inspire, fascinate, and inform your audience in many ways.