Quoting Poetry - how to

You must acknowledge an author's work if you quote the exact words, as well as when paraphrasing (putting another writer's words in your own words) and summarising (use the ideas based on another writer's work).

Lead in to every quote - prepare your reader for your quote. Connect it to your own sentences, blend it in. Let the reader know that the quote is relevant. It could be a short explantion of the quotes context.

Quoting Poetry - General

• For the title of a short poem, use double quotes.

• For the title of a book length poem, use italics.

• Cite line numbers (not page numbers) in round brackets.

• Keep line breaks in tact.

• Include the author's name and the title of the poem in a sentence relevant to the poem, or include the author in round brackets with line numbers at the end of the quote.

• Quotations have to make sense gramatically. Put square brackets around an added word or words you include for the quotation to make sense.

Quoting Poetry - 1 ro 3 lines

• Use double quotes around the quotation.

• Use forward slashes with a space on either side to divide lines.

• Use capitals where the original uses capitals (but you can change the capital on the first word for your sentence to make sense).

• Use the same punctuation as it appears in the original (but you can leave off the last full stop if your sentence continues).

Whittier :"He stitched and hammered and sung; / In the brook he moistened

his leather, / In the pewter mug his tongue." (10-12).

Quoting Poetry - 4 or more lines

• Block indent if you are quoting 4 or more lines of poetry - 10 spaces from the left margin.

• Double space each line.

• Include the ending punctuation at the end of the final word.

• Include line numbers after the final line of the quote.

reminders Lichen-tipped, warm

as if squirming

with old friendly blood

the stones stood. (Porter 21-24)

Quoting Poetry - A Book-Length Poem

• At the end of the quote, 2 spaces follow, then the line reference follows in round brackets.

• Include the title in italics, the book or canto number, full stop, no space, line numbers.

Ellipses: To Use or Not To Use

• If you take text out of the middle of a line, use ellipses (3 full stops) to represent the missing text.

• Follow these by another full stop if at the end of a sentence.

"reminders of invasion remained, ... here and there," (Dawe, 28)

• If you take out one or more full lines, use a full line of ellipses to represent the missing lines.

reminders of invasion remained, ... here and there, (Dawe, 28)

• Do not use ellipses if you start quoting a poem midline - indent, (or at the end of the quote if the poem continues).

Long greening waves cash themselves, foam change

sliding into Ocean's pocket. She turns: ridicule looks down,

strappy, with faces averted, or is glare and families.

The great hawk of the beach is outstretched, point to point,

quivering and hunting. (Murray 4-8)

Line Numbering

Citing one word? Put the line number at the end of the sentence.

Eliott uses the word fakir to refer to a Holy man (7).

Citing several words or phrases from a poem? Put a line number after each word or phrase.

singly (Lear 1), shingly (5), pumpkinly (6), rapidly (9), vapidly (10)