QUOTES and ATTRIBUTION

1
QUOTES and ATTRIBUTION
2
Why use a quote?

• Adds color
• Adds credibility
• Lets reader feel in touch with speaker
• Give stories change of space
• Lets readers know something important is coming

3
What to quote

• Unique material
• When someone says something unique
• When something is said in a unique way
• When someone important says something important
• Something significant, interesting, surprising,
  disturbing

4
What not to quote

• Factual information
• Something that repeats something that has already
  been said indirectly.

5
Important guidelines

• Be accurate
• Verify information

6
Other techniques

• Paraphrasing quotes
• Partial quotes
• Capturing dialect or accents

7
Questions to ask yourself

• Am I being fair?
• Am I being accurate?
• Am I distorting the meaning?
• Am I changing what the speaker intended to say?

8
Questions for reporters

• Do you correct quotes?
• Do you remove redundancies?
• Do you delete obscenity, profanity and vulgarity?
• Do you make up quotes?
• Do you check quotes with your sources?

9
When to attribute

• Almost always
• Exceptions
• when a source has to be protected
• public record
• Common knowledge
• Available from several sources
• Easily verifiable
• Makes no assumptions
• Is noncontroversial

10
What words to use

• Preferred form
• TO SAY

11
Where to put attribution

• If quote is more than one sentence long, put the
  attribution after the first sentence of the quote.

12
Punctuation tips

• Put commas and periods inside quotation marks
• Put question marks inside quotation marks if the
  entire statement is a question.
• If one person ends the paragraph being quoted and
  the next paragraph starts with the same person
  being quoted, do not use quotes at the end of the
  first paragraph.
• See page 89.