3 Justifications for Altering Quotations

3 Justifications for Altering Quotations 3 Justifications for Altering Quotations 3 Justifications for Altering Quotations By Mark Nichol Generally, writers should not change the wording in quotations, but quotations that lack context or that include a gratuitous word or phrase should be repaired, as shown in the following examples. 1. â€Å"Without those tools, she said, ‘It’s as if years ago we had given them a pencil to write the essay and took away the eraser.’† When a partial paraphrase is inserted before a quotation to provide clarity or additional information, lowercase the first letter of the first word of the quotation even if it was originally a complete sentence: â€Å"Without those tools, she said, ‘it’s as if years ago we had given them a pencil to write the essay and took away the eraser.’† 2. â€Å"It [the fire] was both a setback and a great relief,† he later remarked. Avoid introducing a bracketed noun or noun phrase to specify what an ambiguous pronoun refers to in a quote. Instead, use the noun or noun phrase in a paraphrase and omit the pronoun from the partial quotation that follows: â€Å"The fire, he later remarked, ‘was both a setback and a great relief.’† 3. â€Å"I think it’s important to recognize that this issue is not a, quote, distraction,† she added. Omit, without comment, a speaker’s or writer’s use of the word quote (or the phrase â€Å"quote, unquote†) to signal emphasis or skeptical or ironic usage; simply frame the emphasized word or phrase in single quotation marks: â€Å"‘I think it’s important to recognize that this issue is not a â€Å"distraction,†Ã¢â‚¬â„¢ she added.† Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Punctuation category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:100 Beautiful and Ugly WordsAcronym vs. Initialism15 Names and Descriptions of Effects