GUIDELINES to ACADEMIC INTEGRITY
Quotations and Paraphrasing Start out right! When taking research notes, indicate with quotation marks the material that you copy verbatim. Whether copying verbatim or paraphrasing, note the page number and page breaks in the text. The book may not be available when you write the essay; get it right the first time! As a rule of thumb, a phrase is two or more consecutive substantive words; prepositions and articles do not usually count. A. Common knowledge, presented in your own words, requires neither quotation marks nor a note. Van Gogh’s The Starry Night is not an accurate rendering of the French landscape but an evocation of the painter’s deeply felt emotions. B. Paraphrase. Words or ideas borrowed but put in your own words do not require quotation marks but
the source must be cited in a footnote/endnote. The dramatic architectural spaces created in the works of Remedios Varo and Giorgio de Chirico were the result of both artists’ deliberate reference to their previous work designing for the theatre.3 C. Quotations. If you borrow exact words, phrases or sentences, you must provide a footnote or endnote
giving the exact source. Be sure to quote the words exactly as you find them in the text. • Short direct quotation. A short quotation requires quotation marks and a footnote/endnote.
“One explanation for the intensity of van Gogh’s feelings in this case focuses on the then-popular theory that after death people journeyed to a star, where they continued their lives…”.4
3 Janet A. Kaplan, Unexpected Journeys. The Art and Life of Remedios Varo (London: Virago Press and New York: Abbebille Press, 1988), pp. 207-8. For a discussion of de Chirico’s works for the theatre, see Marianne W. Martin, ‘On de Chirico’s Theater’, in De Chirico, ed. by William Rubin (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1982), pp. 81- 97.
9 • Long direct quotation. If an extract covers more than three lines of text, do not use quotation marks
but set off the quoted material by indenting it and by single spacing it within your double-spaced text. Quotation marks are redundant around such indented material. Provide a footnote at the end of the quotation. If you are quoting a complete paragraph, indent the first line of your text as shown below. (see example below)
• Quotation with some omissions. Indicate the omission with an ellipsis (3 dots). If the omission is at
the end of the sentence, provide 3 dots for the ellipsis and 1 for the usual period,…. NB. If you omit material, make sure you do not alter the author’s meaning.
One of the earliest … examples of Expressionism is The Starry Night, which van
Gogh painted from the window in his cell in a mental asylum. Above the quiet town is a sky pulsating with celestial rhythms and ablaze with exploding stars…. One explanation for the intensity of van Gogh’s feelings in this case focuses on the then-popular theory that after death people journeyed to a star, where they continued their lives…. The idea is given visible form in this painting by the cypress tree, a traditional symbol of both death and eternal life, which dramatically rises to link the terrestrial with the stars.5
• Quoted material within a paraphrase. Indicate quotations with quotation marks and a footnote.
Integrate quotations smoothly into your text. Your sentence must agree grammatically with the quotation! Explanatory details or translations of foreign words may be added in [square brackets].
To support her argument that the power of the Angevin monarchy of Naples over Florentine politics is reflected in the civic art and architecture of Florence, Elliott refers to the Angevin coat of arms over a doorway of the Bargello and to “Giovanni Villani’s report that in 1316 [King] Robert’s vicar, the Count of Battifolle, oversaw the construction of a large part of the new [Bargello] palace”.6 PLAGIARISM A. What is Plagiarism?