Premise

There are lots of reasons to integrate quotes into your writing. But the key question is probably “how do you decide when to paraphrase vs. directly quote?” Obviously, readers want to know where you get your information from, and so directly quoting sources can help to highlight specific points, ideas, and evidence that you want to stand out.

The term “paraphrase” quite simply, is a fancy way of saying “to summarize an another’s words”; whereas “quotes” are when you copy someone else’s words directly. So why choose one over the other?

Examples

Paraphrasing is a fantastic way to identify the overall points within some else’s work via summarizing the main ideas more generally. Take, for example, the first part of the following paragraph from a researched argument paper:

Many mainstream authors have displayed cliché romantic sentiments in their works over the centuries. One needn’t look beyond classics such as those by Author M. Dembros as perfect examples of works that have featured many of the aforementioned tropes in their novels, like The Tale of Listlessness and Marry Me Not. The latter in particular doesn’t hesitate to make characters standout as architypes for dramatic effect. In this sense, Dembros was not the first (nor the last) to do so in popular culture of his time.

You can also paraphrase if you feel like it would be awkward to otherwise cite information that’s presented in an “unquotable” way within the original source:

Considering how frequently major migration occurs, it is important for Stony Brook University to limit the risks that non-CEAS applicants can endure. The U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, reveals that about 30% of students enrolled in postsecondary education during the 2011-2012 academic year changed their major at least once within their first three years of education (“Beginning…” 1). Pertaining to more recent data within Stony Brook University, about 13.2% of students switched their major during the 2020-2021 academic year (“Major Migration…”).

Here, you can see the clear citation of specific statistics—yet no direct quotes are given. The student makes this decision because the figures taken from these sources are merely listed (i.e. as part of tables, spreadsheets, etc.). There really is not much written text to directly quote here for emphasis that teaches us more than just reporting the facts to establish the further analysis and argument to come. Yet it is still important to cite where these numbers come from—hence the parenthetical citations. (Of course, you could potentially include the table or chart itself to illustrate us certain trends or changes in the data, but that’s a topic for another post).

However, let us take a look at the next part of this paragraph for further examples of now directly quoting for emphasis:

Furthermore, with the growing use of technology within our society, more students indicate interest in pursuing computer and information sciences—which are programs within the CEAS. The National Center for Education Statistics notes that “the number of degrees conferred more than doubled between 2009–10 and 2018–19 in computer and information sciences (from 39,600 to 88,600 degrees, an increase of 124 percent)” (“Undergraduate Degree…”).

You can see here that this is a really nice example where the statistics listed are also mingled with some sort of commentary (via the source itself) about those statistics: i.e. this number of a certain type has increased. As the student assessed that this context was best said by the author of the source, it made sense for them to directly quote this material rather than paraphrase.

Further Considerations

Here is a useful breakdown of some of the common categories of reasons for why you may choose to paraphrase vs. directly quote certain details within your writing: