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Referencing Translated Sources (APA, MLA and Chicago)

3-minute read

• 13th June 2018

Poor translators. Without them, we English speakers wouldn’t be able to read sources written in other languages. But are we grateful?

Not if the reference lists we see are anything to go by, as most people forget to include translators’ names. So, whether you’re reading Nietzsche, Proust, or Sun Tzu, join us for a quick look at how to reference translated sources in APA, MLA, and Chicago referencing.

APA Referencing

When citing a work in translation in APA referencing, you will need to give both the year it was originally published and the year it was published in translation:

Freud (1899/1976) was the first to note this phenomenon.

In the reference list, meanwhile, you will need to name the translator and “Trans.” after the title of the source, along with the original date of publication in parentheses at the end of the reference. For instance:

Freud, S. (1976). The interpretation of dreams ( J. Strachey, Trans. ). Penguin. (Original work published 1899)

(N.B. We’re using bold text to highlight the translator in these examples, but you don’t have to do this in your own work!)

MLA Referencing

For translated sources in an MLA Works Cited list, you should give the name of the translator after the words “Translated by” before the publication information:

Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison . Translated by Alan Sheridan , Penguin Books, 1977.

If you are focusing specifically on the translation of a text, you can even give the translator’s name in the first position:

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Sheridan, Alan, translator. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison . By Michel Foucault, Penguin Books, 1977.

However, you should only do this if you are primarily interested in the translation. This will usually be because you’re discussing two translations of a single source or writing about translation itself.

Chicago Referencing (Author–Date)

The format for translated sources in Chicago referencing depends on the referencing style you’re using. With author–date referencing , you only name the translator in the reference list. The format here is:

Foucault, Michel. 1977. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison . Translated by Alan Sheridan. London: Penguin Books.

Chicago Referencing (Footnotes and Bibliography)

With Chicago footnote citations, you need to name the translator in the first footnote and in the bibliography. For the footnote, the format to use is as follows:

1. Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison , trans. Alan Sheridan (London: Penguin Books, 1977), 91–93.

Repeat citations use a shortened footnote , which doesn’t include the translator’s name. But the translator should be included in the bibliography at the end of the document. The information here is the same as in the first footnote, although the format is slightly different:

Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison . Translated by Alan Sheridan. London: Penguin Books, 1977.

Whichever system you’re using, though, remember to get your work checked by a professional before submitting it. This will make sure that all sources are referenced correctly!

Share this article:

Authorname, Ashley. "Examples of Referencing: An In-Depth Look." Translated by Jo Translatorname. Journal of Examples 21, no. 3 (April 1992): 41–52.

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Referencing: MLA Style

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Translations of Quotations

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Translate any quotes that you think your audience will not understand.  Give both the source of the translation and the original. Put the translation immediately following the quotation.

​At the opening of Dante's Inferno , the poet finds himself in "una selva oscura" ("a dark wood"; Ciardi 28).

For content that you translate, add  my trans.  instead of a source in the parenthetical citation.

Sevigne responds to praise of her much admired letters by acknowledging that "there is nothing stiff about them" ("pour figees, ells ne le sont pas"; my trans.; 489).

If your paper includes a lot of content that you have translated, you might want to use an endnote describing which translations are yours. Put the endnote immediately after your first translation in which case you do not need to use my trans.  

[information and sample quotes taken from Modern Language Association of America.  MLA Handbook . The Modern Language Association of America, 2016, p. 90-91.]

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How do I quote English-language sources in a foreign-language paper?

Note: This post relates to content in the eighth edition of the MLA Handbook . For up-to-date guidance, see the ninth edition of the MLA Handbook .

To quote an English-language source in a foreign-language paper, follow the guidelines in section 1.3.8 of the MLA Handbook  on translating quotations (90–91). Let’s say you are writing your paper in German. When you need to quote an English text, present the quotation in English followed by a translation of it into German. Or, if you think that most of your readers (such as your instructor and your fellow students) can read English, you may leave out the German translation.

The following example shows how to format an English-language quotation in a German-language paper, as well as how to cite and document the sources of the quotations. In the first instance, the translation is provided; in the second, the translation is omitted.

Der Roman Moby-Dick fängt mit drei Wörter an: “Call me Ishmael” ‘Nennt mich Ismael’ (14; 33). Works Cited Melville, Herman. Moby-Dick . Dover Publications, 2003. --- . Moby-Dick oder der Wal . Translated by Matthias Jendis, Carl Hanser Verlag, 2001.

Der Roman Moby-Dick fängt mit drei Wörter an: “Call me Ishmael” (14). Work Cited Melville, Herman. Moby-Dick . Dover Publications, 2003.

In the example containing both the English text and its German translation, the quotation and its translation are followed by a parenthetical citation of the relevant page numbers from both the English and German sources—the first corresponds to the English edition, the second to the German translation. Because both the English and German sources are quoted, the list of works cited contains entries for both the English and German editions. In the example containing only the English text, the quotation is followed by a citation of a single page number, corresponding to the English text, and the works-cited list contains an entry for the English edition only.

MLA Handbook . 8th ed., Modern Language Association of America, 2016.

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You read an article which was published in French and you want to quote it in your English-language term paper. You believe that personal translation work is automatically considered paraphrasing, so while you provide the reference for the passage you translate, you do not use quotation marks or text indentation to bring attention to the translated text in your paper. Is this an acceptable method for including translated text in a term paper?

Why is this an issue?

The expression of a sentence or paragraph may change due to your choice of words, but the essential message and findings belong to the original author. Readers need to know when content they are reading has not been chosen or arranged by the author. The translation must be treated as a quote. An interview with the disciplinary officer will be required. See the  Code of Student Conduct and Disciplinary Procedures  in the Handbook on Student Rights and Responsibilities for more details.

How can it be avoided?

There are various citation styles to choose from when including translated text in your work:

• You may use quotation marks around translated passages and add a footnote stating that you translated the text into English; in this case, the original text would be provided in quotation marks in the footnote, with the source.
• You may also indent the translated text so that it has larger margins than the main text. In this case the original passage, in French, would be provided either before or after the translated text.

Instead of searching for just the right article every time I do library research, it's easier to download a few journals and hunt through them for the perfect article later. It's for personal use, so why is this a problem? While individual articles can be downloaded for personal use, it is a violation of McGill's e-journal license and library agreements to download entire journals. This is a misuse of library resources and would lead to an allegation of a violation of the Code of Student Conduct and Disciplinary Procedures , Article 12.

Related Information "As the Internet helps us cross language and cultural borders, more and more incidents of translated plagiarism are bound to arise. These incidents are much harder to detect, as translation is often a fuzzy process that's hard to search for, and even harder to stop as they usually cross international borders. It's very easy for someone who speaks two languages to take a piece of work, translate it and claim it as their own while feeling secure that almost no one who speaks language A will read the language B version and vice versa." - Bailey, J. (2005, August 13). Translation Plagiarism [Web log post]. Retreived from web .

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Quoting and Translating Languages Other than English in PhD Theses

Posted by Rene Tetzner | Nov 11, 2021 | PhD Success | 0 |

8.4 Quoting and Translating Languages Other than English

Many doctoral candidates will need to quote material from languages other than modern English in their theses, so some advice on quoting and translating such material may prove useful. Generally speaking, the rules, principles and practices used when quoting passages in English should be applied when quoting foreign languages as well, so all that I have said about quotations in the earlier sections of this chapter applies here as well. There may, however, be special characters, diacritics and particular conventions to follow for certain languages: for more information on the use of foreign languages in English texts, see Butcher et al. (2006, Section 6.6 and Appendices 5, 7, 9 and 10), the Chicago Manual of Style (2003, Chapter 10) and Ritter (2005, Chapter 12), all of which contain lists of the alphabets and special characters used in particular languages. The assumption behind quoting material in languages other than English is that the quotations will be understood by the intended audience, which means that those readers will need to be fluent or specialists in the language quoted and/or the topic discussed: in a literary study of a German author, for instance, it can usually be assumed that interested readers will understand the original language, and in a thesis aimed at classicists, it is most likely that passages in Greek and Latin will be accessible to those readers. You should therefore have a good idea of who your intended readers are and what languages they are likely to read; if you think English translations will help your readers understand the quotations you use and thus your argument and thesis as a whole, it is wise to provide such translations.

In many cases, providing an English translation of a passage originally in a foreign language is more appropriate than quoting the original language. You should, however, inform readers that they are reading a translation, which is usually done by quoting from a reliable published English translation and providing an appropriate reference. As a general rule, only if an available translation is unsuitable for your purposes should the passages you wish to quote be newly translated. If you do use your own translations in your thesis, you should include some indication that the translation is your own. This can be achieved most easily immediately after a translated quotation by adding in parentheses along with the reference or in a note ‘my translation’ or ‘translation mine.’ If you have yourself translated all of the quotations from non-English texts (or from any one non-English text) that you use in your thesis, an explanation in conjunction with the first instance (whether with the parenthetical reference or in a note) can explain the situation: ‘All translations of passages quoted from foreign languages are my own’ would work or perhaps ‘Unless otherwise noted, all translations from Les Misérables are my own.’ Remember that while previously published English translations and your own new English translations of foreign texts are acceptable for quotation in scholarly writing, retranslations are not: for example, if a book was originally published in English, but you have used it in a German translation, any quotations from that book should nonetheless be taken from the original English, not translated back into English from the German translation (the German translation might be included along with the original source in your reference list, however).

If language is a focus in your thesis or quotations are discussed in detail, you may want to provide both the original language and a translation of any quotations. There are various different ways of supplying this combination: the foreign language or the translation might precede the other; the original might be provided in full with only partial translations or the translation might be complete with only occasional words from the original; the original and the translation might both be embedded or set as block quotations, or one might appear in the text in one of these forms while the other is relegated to a note; translations of poetry might take the form of verse or prose, and for quotations from Middle or Old English texts, a more modern version of difficult words might be provided as glosses. The following are common formats and practices for providing foreign-language and translated quotations:

• Original and translation of an entire quotation: whether the original language or the translated version is provided first in the text, the other should normally follow and be enclosed in either parentheses or square brackets. University or department guidelines will rarely indicate a preference for square brackets or parentheses in such situations, but style guides seem to recommend parentheses more often than square brackets, as in the following example: In Watts (1912, p.462) the line reads ‘Dicebam haec, et flebam, amarissima contritione cordis mei (I was saying these things and weeping in the bitterest contrition of my heart).’ When square brackets are used, they tend to be used more often in displayed quotations, while parentheses are the usual choice for the second version in embedded quotations. Occasionally, a slash with spaces on both sides is used between the original and translated versions of a quotation, in which case no brackets are necessary – ‘Dicebam haec, et flebam, amarissima contritione cordis mei / I was saying these things and weeping in the bitterest contrition of my heart’ – but this is rare compared with the use of brackets and parentheses. If the second version in a block quotation is the original language, it can be set in italics instead of brackets, and while this may be acceptable for distinguishing the original language in such situations, quotations in any language should not usually be set in italic font. If the second version of a quotation (either in the original language or a translation) is presented in a note instead of in the main text, no brackets are used in the note; instead, the passage in the note should be placed in quotation marks.

• Original, translation and reference: if a second version of a quotation, whether it is the original or a translation, is needed as well as a parenthetical reference, there are four possibilities. The second version of the quotation can be provided in square brackets and the reference in parentheses; both can be provided in the same set of parentheses with a semicolon separating the two; each can be provided in a separate set of parentheses with the closing parenthesis of the first backing onto the opening one of the second; or either the second version or the reference can be provided in a note instead. The first and last of these methods are probably the best in terms of both clarity and style, with the first taking this form: ‘Dicebam haec, et flebam, amarissima contritione cordis mei [I was saying these things and weeping in the bitterest contrition of my heart]’ (Watts, 1912, p.462).
• Entire original or translation with partial translation or original: when either the original language or the translation of an entire quotation is provided along with only certain words of the translation or the original, parentheses or square brackets are used inside the main quotation to enclose the words provided from the other version. This method is also the preferred method for providing modern equivalents of Old and Middle English words. The added words often appear in italic font, especially if they represent the foreign language, in which case italics allow you to use the nominative form of a word from an inflected language (see Section 6.2.2 above), but roman font and/or quotation marks can be used instead, particularly for translated words. Parentheses seem to be the most common choice for such interpolated words, whether they are in the original language or translations – ‘I was saying these things ( haec ) and weeping in the bitterest contrition of my heart ( cor )’ – and parentheses in such situations have the advantage of distinguishing the foreign or translated words from other interpolations or comments that you may need to add in square brackets. Though used less frequently than parentheses for adding original or translated words, square brackets are nonetheless appropriate for this purpose because the words from the second version are interpolated into the quotation, and such brackets are especially appropriate if you wish to offer any comments along with the words from the second version. If, however, either parentheses or square brackets are used for other purposes in the quoted passage (parentheses for parenthetical information provided by the original author, for example, or square brackets for variant readings that you include), it will be clearest not to use that type of bracket for words from the original text or a translation as well.
• Quotation marks: when quoting and translating foreign languages in the form of block quotations in the main text of a thesis, no quotation marks are necessary around either the original or the translation. If, however, original and translated versions are embedded in your text or presented in a note, quotation marks should be placed around both. Often the quotation marks enclose the whole structure, with the opening quotation mark placed at the beginning of the first version quoted and the closing quotation mark placed after the closing parenthesis or bracket surrounding the second version, as in this example: In Watts (1912, p.462) the line reads ‘Dicebam haec, et flebam, amarissima contritione cordis mei (I was saying these things and weeping in the bitterest contrition of my heart).’ This is certainly the format that should be adopted if square brackets are used to enclose the second version, and it is also the best approach when partial translations or occasional original words are interpolated (either in parentheses or square brackets) in an embedded quotation (see my example using the same Latin passage in the preceding bulleted paragraph). When, however, an original version or translation follows the other and is enclosed in parentheses, two sets of quotation marks are sometimes used, with the first surrounding the first version and the second appearing within the parentheses and enclosing the second version: ‘Dicebam haec, et flebam, amarissima contritione cordis mei’ (‘I was saying these things and weeping in the bitterest contrition of my heart’).

Although it may be appropriate in a single thesis to use one format for quoting a foreign language in one situation and a different one in another, or to provide more of the original or more of the translation in one case than in another in order to communicate whatever might be necessary to enable readers to understand the quotations you use, consistency of style and practice should be observed as much as possible throughout a thesis. The consistent use of brackets (parentheses or square) for the same purposes in all quotations presented in a thesis is particularly important for ensuring that the source is accurately represented and the reader is able to determine what is intended in each case, so their use needs to be carefully planned to accommodate all the situations presented by the quoted passages, and any remaining anomalies should be clearly explained. Finally, your own translations of any quotations should represent the original as faithfully as possible, achieve a scholarly standard of correct English (with allowances for informal speech or writing if that is what you happen to be quoting) and present the material in the way that best serves your particular purposes and supports or advances your overall argument.

PRS Tip: If your thesis contains your own translations of quotations (or even a selection of words or phrases) borrowed from a language other than English and you are planning to engage the services of a professional proofreader, it is always a good idea to let the proofreader know that the translations are your own. An acknowledgement of the kind I have recommended above indicating that the translations are your own will communicate this fact to your proofreader as it does to other readers, but you may want to make your translating activities more explicit in any instructions you provide for your proofreader so that he or she feels free to check and correct if necessary the English of your translations. This is especially important if your first language is not English, because it is often difficult to express in a language with which you are less familiar the subtleties or profundity of the quotations that you have deemed worthy of use. If you also quote a passage in its original language, your proofreader may be able to judge how accurately you have conveyed the original author’s meaning (many of the proofreaders used by PRS, for instance, read and work in other languages as well as English), but even if the original is not available to your proofreader, he or she will be able to determine whether your translation is clear and grammatically correct, and also whether it expresses what other aspects of your text suggest the quotation should express. You can then compare your proofreader’s suggestions with the original text and make whatever adjustments might be necessary. Dealing with translated material is only one among many reasons to treat yourself to the proofreading services offered by PRS, which are quick, affordable and completely confidential. The PRS drop box at https://www.hightail.com/u/CEDS offers a safe and efficient way to submit your writing for proofreading, and the PRS team is more than happy to answer questions and provide any help you may need 24 hours a day from Monday to Friday. Please visit the PRS web site at http://www.proof-reading-service.com for further information.

Why PhD Success?

To Graduate Successfully

This article is part of a book called "PhD Success" which focuses on the writing process of a phd thesis, with its aim being to provide sound practices and principles for reporting and formatting in text the methods, results and discussion of even the most innovative and unique research in ways that are clear, correct, professional and persuasive.

The assumption of the book is that the doctoral candidate reading it is both eager to write and more than capable of doing so, but nonetheless requires information and guidance on exactly what he or she should be writing and how best to approach the task. The basic components of a doctoral thesis are outlined and described, as are the elements of complete and accurate scholarly references, and detailed descriptions of writing practices are clarified through the use of numerous examples.

The basic components of a doctoral thesis are outlined and described, as are the elements of complete and accurate scholarly references, and detailed descriptions of writing practices are clarified through the use of numerous examples. PhD Success provides guidance for students familiar with English and the procedures of English universities, but it also acknowledges that many theses in the English language are now written by candidates whose first language is not English, so it carefully explains the scholarly styles, conventions and standards expected of a successful doctoral thesis in the English language.

Individual chapters of this book address reflective and critical writing early in the thesis process; working successfully with thesis supervisors and benefiting from commentary and criticism; drafting and revising effective thesis chapters and developing an academic or scientific argument; writing and formatting a thesis in clear and correct scholarly English; citing, quoting and documenting sources thoroughly and accurately; and preparing for and excelling in thesis meetings and examinations. 

Completing a doctoral thesis successfully requires long and penetrating thought, intellectual rigour and creativity, original research and sound methods (whether established or innovative), precision in recording detail and a wide-ranging thoroughness, as much perseverance and mental toughness as insight and brilliance, and, no matter how many helpful writing guides are consulted, a great deal of hard work over a significant period of time. Writing a thesis can be an enjoyable as well as a challenging experience, however, and even if it is not always so, the personal and professional rewards of achieving such an enormous goal are considerable, as all doctoral candidates no doubt realise, and will last a great deal longer than any problems that may be encountered during the process.

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Rene Tetzner

Rene Tetzner's blog posts dedicated to academic writing. Although the focus is on How To Write a Doctoral Thesis, many other important aspects of research-based writing, editing and publishing are addressed in helpful detail.

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• How to Quote | Citing Quotes in Harvard & APA

How to Quote | Citing Quotes in Harvard & APA

Published on 15 April 2022 by Shona McCombes and Jack Caulfield. Revised on 3 September 2022.

Quoting means copying a passage of someone else’s words and crediting the source. To quote a source, you must ensure:

• The quoted text is enclosed in quotation marks (usually single quotation marks in UK English, though double is acceptable as long as you’re consistent) or formatted as a block quote
• The original author is correctly cited
• The text is identical to the original

The exact format of a quote depends on its length and on which citation style you are using. Quoting and citing correctly is essential to avoid plagiarism , which is easy to detect with a good plagiarism checker .

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Table of contents

How to cite a quote in harvard and apa style, introducing quotes, quotes within quotes, shortening or altering a quote, block quotes, when should i use quotes, frequently asked questions about quoting sources.

Every time you quote, you must cite the source correctly . This looks slightly different depending on the citation style you’re using.

Citing a quote in Harvard style

When you include a quote in Harvard style, you must add a Harvard in-text citation giving the author’s last name, the year of publication, and a page number if available. Any full stop or comma appears after the citation, not within the quotation marks.

Citations can be parenthetical or narrative. In a parenthetical citation , you place all the information in brackets after the quote. In a narrative citation , you name the author in your sentence (followed by the year), and place the page number after the quote.

• Evolution is a gradual process that ‘can act only by very short and slow steps’ (Darwin, 1859, p. 510) . Darwin (1859) explains that evolution ‘can act only by very short and slow steps’ (p. 510) .

Complete guide to Harvard style

Citing a quote in APA Style

To cite a direct quote in APA , you must include the author’s last name, the year, and a page number, all separated by commas. If the quote appears on a single page, use ‘p.’; if it spans a page range, use ‘pp.’

An APA in-text citation can be parenthetical or narrative. In a parenthetical citation , you place all the information in parentheses after the quote. In a narrative citation , you name the author in your sentence (followed by the year), and place the page number after the quote.

Punctuation marks such as full stops and commas are placed after the citation, not within the quotation marks.

• Evolution is a gradual process that ‘can act only by very short and slow steps’ (Darwin, 1859, p. 510) .
• Darwin (1859) explains that evolution ‘can act only by very short and slow steps’ (p. 510) .

Complete guide to APA

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Make sure you integrate quotes properly into your text by introducing them in your own words, showing the reader why you’re including the quote and providing any context necessary to understand it.  Don’t  present quotations as stand-alone sentences.

There are three main strategies you can use to introduce quotes in a grammatically correct way:

• Add an introductory sentence
• Use an introductory signal phrase
• Integrate the quote into your own sentence

The following examples use APA Style citations, but these strategies can be used in all styles.

Introductory sentence

Introduce the quote with a full sentence ending in a colon . Don’t use a colon if the text before the quote isn’t a full sentence.

If you name the author in your sentence, you may use present-tense verbs, such as “states’, ‘argues’, ‘explains’, ‘writes’, or ‘reports’, to describe the content of the quote.

• In Denmark, a recent poll shows that: ‘A membership referendum held today would be backed by 55 percent of Danish voters’ (Levring, 2018, p. 3).
• In Denmark, a recent poll shows that support for the EU has grown since the Brexit vote: ‘A membership referendum held today would be backed by 55 percent of Danish voters’ (Levring, 2018, p. 3).
• Levring (2018) reports that support for the EU has grown since the Brexit vote: ‘A membership referendum held today would be backed by 55 percent of Danish voters’ (p. 3).

Introductory signal phrase

You can also use a signal phrase that mentions the author or source but doesn’t form a full sentence. In this case, you follow the phrase with a comma instead of a colon.

• According to a recent poll, ‘A membership referendum held today would be backed by 55 percent of Danish voters’ (Levring, 2018, p. 3).
• As Levring (2018) explains, ‘A membership referendum held today would be backed by 55 percent of Danish voters’ (p. 3).

Integrated into your own sentence

To quote a phrase that doesn’t form a full sentence, you can also integrate it as part of your sentence, without any extra punctuation.

• A recent poll suggests that EU membership ‘would be backed by 55 percent of Danish voters’ in a referendum (Levring, 2018, p. 3).
• Levring (2018) reports that EU membership ‘would be backed by 55 percent of Danish voters’ in a referendum (p. 3).

When you quote text that itself contains another quote, this is called a nested quotation or a quote within a quote. It may occur, for example, when quoting dialogue from a novel.

To distinguish this quote from the surrounding quote, you enclose it in double (instead of single) quotation marks (even if this involves changing the punctuation from the original text). Make sure to close both sets of quotation marks at the appropriate moments.

Note that if you only quote the nested quotation itself, and not the surrounding text, you can just use single quotation marks.

• Carraway introduces his narrative by quoting his father: ‘ ‘ Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone, ‘ he told me, ‘ just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had ‘ ‘ (Fitzgerald 1).
• Carraway introduces his narrative by quoting his father: ‘”Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone,” he told me, “just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had “  (Fitzgerald 1).
• Carraway introduces his narrative by quoting his father: ‘“Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone,” he told me, “just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had”’ (Fitzgerald 1).
• Carraway begins by quoting his father’s invocation to ‘remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had’ (Fitzgerald 1).

Note:  When the quoted text in the source comes from another source, it’s best to just find that original source in order to quote it directly. If you can’t find the original source, you can instead cite it indirectly .

Often, incorporating a quote smoothly into your text requires you to make some changes to the original text. It’s fine to do this, as long as you clearly mark the changes you’ve made to the quote.

Shortening a quote

If some parts of a passage are redundant or irrelevant, you can shorten the quote by removing words, phrases, or sentences and replacing them with an ellipsis (…). Put a space before and after the ellipsis.

Be careful that removing the words doesn’t change the meaning. The ellipsis indicates that some text has been removed, but the shortened quote should still accurately represent the author’s point.

Altering a quote

You can add or replace words in a quote when necessary. This might be because the original text doesn’t fit grammatically with your sentence (e.g., it’s in a different tense), or because extra information is needed to clarify the quote’s meaning.

Use brackets to distinguish words that you have added from words that were present in the original text.

The Latin term ‘ sic ‘ is used to indicate a (factual or grammatical) mistake in a quotation. It shows the reader that the mistake is from the quoted material, not a typo of your own.

In some cases, it can be useful to italicise part of a quotation to add emphasis, showing the reader that this is the key part to pay attention to. Use the phrase ’emphasis added’ to show that the italics were not part of the original text.

You usually don’t need to use brackets to indicate minor changes to punctuation or capitalisation made to ensure the quote fits the style of your text.

If you quote more than a few lines from a source, you must format it as a block quote . Instead of using quotation marks, you set the quote on a new line and indent it so that it forms a separate block of text.

Block quotes are cited just like regular quotes, except that if the quote ends with a full stop, the citation appears after the full stop.

To the end of his days Bilbo could never remember how he found himself outside, without a hat, a walking-stick or any money, or anything that he usually took when he went out; leaving his second breakfast half-finished and quite unwashed-up, pushing his keys into Gandalf’s hands, and running as fast as his furry feet could carry him down the lane, past the great Mill, across The Water, and then on for a mile or more. (16)

Avoid relying too heavily on quotes in academic writing . To integrate a source , it’s often best to paraphrase , which means putting the passage into your own words. This helps you integrate information smoothly and keeps your own voice dominant.

However, there are some situations in which quotes are more appropriate.

When focusing on language

If you want to comment on how the author uses language (for example, in literary analysis ), it’s necessary to quote so that the reader can see the exact passage you are referring to.

When giving evidence

To convince the reader of your argument, interpretation or position on a topic, it’s often helpful to include quotes that support your point. Quotes from primary sources (for example, interview transcripts or historical documents) are especially credible as evidence.

When presenting an author’s position or definition

When you’re referring to secondary sources such as scholarly books and journal articles, try to put others’ ideas in your own words when possible.

But if a passage does a great job at expressing, explaining, or defining something, and it would be very difficult to paraphrase without changing the meaning or losing the weakening the idea’s impact, it’s worth quoting directly.

A quote is an exact copy of someone else’s words, usually enclosed in quotation marks and credited to the original author or speaker.

To present information from other sources in academic writing , it’s best to paraphrase in most cases. This shows that you’ve understood the ideas you’re discussing and incorporates them into your text smoothly.

It’s appropriate to quote when:

• Changing the phrasing would distort the meaning of the original text
• You want to discuss the author’s language choices (e.g., in literary analysis )
• You’re presenting a precise definition
• You’re looking in depth at a specific claim

Every time you quote a source , you must include a correctly formatted in-text citation . This looks slightly different depending on the citation style .

For example, a direct quote in APA is cited like this: ‘This is a quote’ (Streefkerk, 2020, p. 5).

Every in-text citation should also correspond to a full reference at the end of your paper.

In scientific subjects, the information itself is more important than how it was expressed, so quoting should generally be kept to a minimum. In the arts and humanities, however, well-chosen quotes are often essential to a good paper.

In social sciences, it varies. If your research is mainly quantitative , you won’t include many quotes, but if it’s more qualitative , you may need to quote from the data you collected .

As a general guideline, quotes should take up no more than 5–10% of your paper. If in doubt, check with your instructor or supervisor how much quoting is appropriate in your field.

If you’re quoting from a text that paraphrases or summarises other sources and cites them in parentheses , APA  recommends retaining the citations as part of the quote:

• Smith states that ‘the literature on this topic (Jones, 2015; Sill, 2019; Paulson, 2020) shows no clear consensus’ (Smith, 2019, p. 4).

Footnote or endnote numbers that appear within quoted text should be omitted.

If you want to cite an indirect source (one you’ve only seen quoted in another source), either locate the original source or use the phrase ‘as cited in’ in your citation.

A block quote is a long quote formatted as a separate ‘block’ of text. Instead of using quotation marks , you place the quote on a new line, and indent the entire quote to mark it apart from your own words.

APA uses block quotes for quotes that are 40 words or longer.

Cite this Scribbr article

If you want to cite this source, you can copy and paste the citation or click the ‘Cite this Scribbr article’ button to automatically add the citation to our free Reference Generator.

McCombes, S. & Caulfield, J. (2022, September 03). How to Quote | Citing Quotes in Harvard & APA. Scribbr. Retrieved 22 April 2024, from https://www.scribbr.co.uk/working-sources/quoting/

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When to Use Italics or Quotation Marks with Foreign Words

By Erin Wright

But first, what constitutes a foreign word? In general, words that originate from languages other than English aren’t considered foreign if they are included in our primary dictionaries . Three of the most popular American-English dictionaries are Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary , Webster’s New World College Dictionar y, and The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language . If the word you are writing doesn’t appear in one of these dictionaries, you may want to format it with italics or place it in quotation marks, as explained below.

And, why would you use a foreign word? You may want to use a foreign word to add interest or authenticity to your writing. In other cases, you may have to use a foreign word because there is no English equivalent. Regardless, foreign words should be used sparingly and with great consideration because too many can confuse or frustrate your readers.

Italics with Foreign Words (Chicago Style)

Use italics for foreign words if you are writing a business document or general nonfiction. If the word appears frequently throughout your document, The Chicago Manual of Style (Chicago style) recommends only using the italics the first time the word appears; however, you can continue to use italics if the word appears infrequently.

The waiter explained that le fromage would be served with a baguette, not with crackers.

The host served formaggio as an appetizer before the antipasto.

Quotation Marks with Foreign Words (AP style)

If you are writing a news-centric piece or are an independent journalist without a house style guide, follow the guideline from The Associated Press Stylebook (AP style): Use quotation marks around foreign words that aren’t “understood universally.” In addition to the quotation marks, AP style also recommends explaining the meaning of the word. 2

The waiter explained that “le fromage,” which is cheese in French, would be served with a baguette, not with crackers.

The host served “formaggio,” which is cheese in Italian, before the antipasto.

Foreign Words in Academic Writing (APA Style and MLA Style)

Follow the relevant guideline above if your academic department adheres to either Chicago style or AP style.

If your department uses the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (APA style), avoid pairing italics or quotation marks with “common” foreign words. Note that while APA style advises against special formatting for well-known foreign words, it doesn’t directly recommend italics or quotation marks for uncommon foreign words, either. 3 Nevertheless, APA style does encourage italics with the first use of “key terms” that readers may be unfamiliar or less familiar with; 4 so, foreign words can potentially fall into this key term category.

The Modern Language Association’s MLA Handbook is silent on the issue of formatting foreign words. However, MLA style’s official online presence, The MLA Style Center , recommends italicizing most uncommon foreign words. 5

As always, I encourage business and nonfiction writers who aren’t using a specific style guide to follow the Chicago style recommendation.

• The Chicago Manual of Style , 17th ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2017), 7.53.
• The Associated Press Stylebook 2020–2022 (New York: Associated Press, 2020), 115.
• Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association , 7th ed. (Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, 2020), 6.22.
• “ How should I treat foreign terms in MLA style? ” Ask the MLA, The MLA Style Center, accessed November 8, 2019.
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How to Put a Quote in an Essay

Last Updated: November 28, 2022 Fact Checked

This article was co-authored by Christopher Taylor, PhD and by wikiHow staff writer, Danielle Blinka, MA, MPA . Christopher Taylor is an Adjunct Assistant Professor of English at Austin Community College in Texas. He received his PhD in English Literature and Medieval Studies from the University of Texas at Austin in 2014. There are 11 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 2,638,395 times.

Using a direct quote in your essay is a great way to support your ideas with concrete evidence, which you need to support your thesis. To select a good quote , look for a passage that supports your argument and is open to analysis. Then, incorporate that quote into your essay, and make sure you properly cite it based on the style guide you’re using.

Sample Quotes

Incorporating a Short Quote

• For instance, let's say this is the quote you want to use: "The brown leaves symbolize the death of their relationship, while the green buds suggest new opportunities will soon unfold."
• If you just type that sentence into your essay and put quotes around it, your reader will be disoriented. Instead, you could incorporate it into a sentence like this: "The imagery in the story mirrors what's happening in Lia's love life, as 'The brown leaves symbolize the death of their relationship, while the green buds suggest new opportunities will soon unfold.'"

• "Critic Alex Li says, 'The frequent references to the color blue are used to suggest that the family is struggling to cope with the loss of their matriarch.'"
• "According to McKinney’s research, 'Adults who do yoga at least three times a week have lower blood pressure, better sleeping patterns, and fewer everyday frustrations.'"
• "Based on several recent studies, people are more likely to sit on the park benches when they're shaded by trees."

• You still need to use quotation marks even if you're only quoting a few words.
• If you're in doubt, it's best to be cautious and use quotes.

• For example, let’s say you used the quote, “According to McKinney’s research, ‘Adults who do yoga at least three times a week have lower blood pressure, better sleeping patterns, and fewer everyday frustrations.’” Your commentary might read, “This shows that yoga can have a positive impact on people’s health, so incorporating it into the workplace can help improve employee health outcomes. Since yoga makes employees healthier, they’ll likely have reduced insurance costs.”

• When you use a paraphrase, you still need to provide commentary that links the paraphrased material back to your thesis and ideas.

Using a Long Quote

• The reader will recognize that the material is a direct quote because it's set off from the rest of the text. That's why you don't need to use quotation marks. However, you will include your citation at the bottom.

• "In The Things They Carried , the items carried by soldiers in the Vietnam war are used to both characterize them and burden the readers with the weight they are carrying: The things they carried were largely determined by necessity. Among the necessities or near-necessities were P-38 can openers, pocket knives, heat tabs, wristwatches, dog tags, mosquito repellent, chewing gum, candy cigarettes, salt tablets, packets of Kool-Aid, lighters, matches, sewing kits, Military Payment Certificates, C rations, and two or three canteens of water." (O'Brien 2)

Variation: When you're citing two or more paragraphs, you must use block quotes, even if the passage you want to quote is less than four lines long. You should indent the first line of each paragraph an extra quarter inch. Then, use ellipses (…) at the end of one paragraph to transition to the next.

• Your block quote will use the same spacing as the rest of your paper, which will likely be double-spacing.

• For example, “According to Li, “Rosa is the first sister to pick a rose because she’s the only one who’s begun to move on after their mother’s death” might become “According to Li, “Rosa is the first sister to pick a rose because she’s … begun to move on after their mother’s death.”
• Don’t eliminate words to change the meaning of the original text. For instance, it’s not appropriate to use an ellipsis to change “plants did not grow faster when exposed to poetry” to “plants did … grow faster when exposed to poetry.”

• For example, let’s say you want to use the quote, “All of them experienced a more relaxed, calmer disposition after doing yoga for 6 months.” This doesn’t tell the reader who you’re talking about. You could use brackets to say, “All of [the teachers in the study] experienced a more relaxed, calmer disposition after doing yoga for 6 months.”
• However, if you know the study is talking about teachers, you couldn’t use brackets to say, “All of [society experiences] a more relaxed, calmer disposition after doing yoga for 6 months.”

• If you don't explain your quote well, then it's not helping your ideas. You can't expect the reader to connect the quote back to your thesis for you.

• For instance, you may prefer to use a long block quote to present a passage from a literary work that demonstrates the author's style. However, let's say you were using a journal article to provide a critic's perspective on an author's work. You may not need to directly quote an entire paragraph word-for-word to get their point across. Instead, use a paraphrase.

Tip: If you’re unsure about a quote, ask yourself, “Can I paraphrase this in more concise language and not lose any support for my argument?” If the answer is yes, a quote is not necessary.

Citing Your Quote

• An MLA citation will look like this: (Lopez 24)
• For sources with multiple authors, separate their names with the word “and:” (Anderson and Smith 55-56) or (Taylor, Gomez, and Austin 89)
• If you use the author’s name in your lead-in to the quote, you just need to provide the year in parentheses: According to Luz Lopez, “the green grass symbolizes a fresh start for Lia (24).”

• An APA citation for a direct quote looks like this: (Ronan, 2019, p. 10)
• If you’re citing multiple authors, separate their names with the word “and:” (Cruz, Hanks, and Simmons, 2019, p. 85)
• If you incorporated the author’s name into your lead-in, you can just give the year and page number: Based on Ronan’s (2019, p. 10) analysis, “coffee breaks improve productivity.”

• For instance, a Chicago Style citation will look like this: (Alexander 2019, 125)
• If you’re quoting a source with multiple authors, separate them with the word “and:” (Pattinson, Stewart, and Green 2019, 175)
• If you already incorporated the author’s name into your quote, then you can just provide the year and page number: According to Alexander, “the smell of roses increases feelings of happiness” (2019, 125).

• For MLA, you'd cite an article like this: Lopez, Luz. "A Fresh Blossom: Imagery in 'Her Darkest Sunshine.'" Journal of Stories , vol. 2, no. 5, 2019, p. 15-22. [17] X Trustworthy Source Purdue Online Writing Lab Trusted resource for writing and citation guidelines Go to source
• In APA, you'd cite an article like this: Lopez, Luz. (2019). A Fresh Blossom: Imagery in "Her Darkest Sunshine." Journal of Stories , 2(5), 15-22. [18] X Trustworthy Source Purdue Online Writing Lab Trusted resource for writing and citation guidelines Go to source
• For Chicago Style, your article citation would look like this: Lopez, Luz. "A Fresh Blossom: Imagery in 'Her Darkest Sunshine.'" Journal of Stories 2 no. 4 (2019): 15-22. [19] X Trustworthy Source Purdue Online Writing Lab Trusted resource for writing and citation guidelines Go to source

Selecting a Quote

Tip: Quotes are most effective when the original language of the person or text you’re quoting is worth repeating word-for-word.

• If you’re struggling to explain the quote or link it back to your argument, then it’s likely not a good idea to include it in your essay.

• Paraphrases and summaries work just like a direct quote, except that you don’t need to put quotation marks around them because you’re using your own words to restate ideas. However, you still need to cite the sources you used.

Community Q&A

• Always cite your quotes properly. If you don't, it is considered plagiarism. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0

You Might Also Like

• ↑ https://www.ursinus.edu/live/files/1160-integrating-quotespdf
• ↑ https://lsa.umich.edu/sweetland/undergraduates/writing-guides/how-do-i-incorporate-quotes-.html
• ↑ https://helpfulprofessor.com/quotes/
• ↑ https://advice.writing.utoronto.ca/using-sources/quotations/
• ↑ https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/mla_style/mla_formatting_and_style_guide/mla_formatting_quotations.html
• ↑ https://guides.libraries.psu.edu/apaquickguide/intext
• ↑ https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide/citation-guide-2.html
• ↑ https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/mla_style/mla_formatting_and_style_guide/mla_formatting_and_style_guide.html
• ↑ https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/apa_style/apa_formatting_and_style_guide/reference_list_articles_in_periodicals.html
• ↑ https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/chicago_manual_17th_edition/cmos_formatting_and_style_guide/periodicals.html
• ↑ https://writingcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/quotations/

About This Article

Medical Disclaimer

The content of this article is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, examination, diagnosis, or treatment. You should always contact your doctor or other qualified healthcare professional before starting, changing, or stopping any kind of health treatment.

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To put a quote in an essay, incorporate it directly into a sentence if it's shorter than 4 typed lines. For example, you could write "According to researchers," and then insert the quote. If a quote is longer than 4 typed lines, set it off from the rest of the paragraph, and don't put quotes around it. After the quote, include an in-text citation so readers know where it's from. The right way to cite the quote will depend on whether you're using MLA, APA, or Chicago Style formatting. For more tips from our English co-author, like how to omit words from a quote, scroll down! Did this summary help you? Yes No

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MLA Formatting Quotations

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This page is brought to you by the OWL at Purdue University. When printing this page, you must include the entire legal notice.

Copyright ©1995-2018 by The Writing Lab & The OWL at Purdue and Purdue University. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, reproduced, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without permission. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our terms and conditions of fair use.

When you directly quote the works of others in your paper, you will format quotations differently depending on their length. Below are some basic guidelines for incorporating quotations into your paper. Please note that all pages in MLA should be double-spaced .

Short quotations

To indicate short quotations (four typed lines or fewer of prose or three lines of verse) in your text, enclose the quotation within double quotation marks. Provide the author and specific page number (in the case of verse, provide line numbers) in the in-text citation, and include a complete reference on the Works Cited page. Punctuation marks such as periods, commas, and semicolons should appear after the parenthetical citation.

Question marks and exclamation points should appear within the quotation marks if they are a part of the quoted passage, but after the parenthetical citation if they are a part of your text.

For example, when quoting short passages of prose, use the following examples:

When using short (fewer than three lines of verse) quotations from poetry, mark breaks in verse with a slash, ( / ), at the end of each line of verse (a space should precede and follow the slash). If a stanza break occurs during the quotation, use a double slash ( // ).

Long quotations

For quotations that are more than four lines of prose or three lines of verse, place quotations in a free-standing block of text and omit quotation marks. Start the quotation on a new line, with the entire quote indented 1/2   inch  from the left margin while maintaining double-spacing. Your parenthetical citation should come  after the closing punctuation mark . When quoting verse, maintain original line breaks. (You should maintain double-spacing throughout your essay.)

For example, when citing more than four lines of prose, use the following examples :

Nelly Dean treats Heathcliff poorly and dehumanizes him throughout her narration: They entirely refused to have it in bed with them, or even in their room, and I had no more sense, so, I put it on the landing of the stairs, hoping it would be gone on the morrow. By chance, or else attracted by hearing his voice, it crept to Mr. Earnshaw's door, and there he found it on quitting his chamber. Inquiries were made as to how it got there; I was obliged to confess, and in recompense for my cowardice and inhumanity was sent out of the house. (Bronte 78)

When citing long sections of poetry (four lines of verse or more), keep formatting as close to the original as possible.

In his poem "My Papa's Waltz," Theodore Roethke explores his childhood with his father:

The whiskey on your breath Could make a small boy dizzy; But I hung on like death: Such waltzing was not easy. We Romped until the pans Slid from the kitchen shelf; My mother's countenance Could not unfrown itself. (qtd. in Shrodes, Finestone, Shugrue 202)

When citing two or more paragraphs, use block quotation format, even if the passage from the paragraphs is less than four lines. If you cite more than one paragraph, the first line of the second paragraph should be indented an extra 1/4 inch to denote a new paragraph:

In "American Origins of the Writing-across-the-Curriculum Movement," David Russell argues,

Writing has been an issue in American secondary and higher education since papers and examinations came into wide use in the 1870s, eventually driving out formal recitation and oral examination. . . .

From its birth in the late nineteenth century, progressive education has wrestled with the conflict within industrial society between pressure to increase specialization of knowledge and of professional work (upholding disciplinary standards) and pressure to integrate more fully an ever-widening number of citizens into intellectually meaningful activity within mass society (promoting social equity). . . . (3)

Adding or omitting words in quotations

If you add a word or words in a quotation, you should put brackets around the words to indicate that they are not part of the original text:

If you omit a word or words from a quotation, you should indicate the deleted word or words by using ellipses, which are three periods ( . . . ) preceded and followed by a space. For example:

Please note that brackets are not needed around ellipses unless they would add clarity.

When omitting words from poetry quotations, use a standard three-period ellipses; however, when omitting one or more full lines of poetry, space several periods to about the length of a complete line in the poem:

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How to Quote a Bible Verse in an Essay

Published: April 23, 2024

Learn the proper way to cite Bible verses in academic essays, ensuring accurate and respectful integration of scripture into your writing.

(Many of the links in this article redirect to a specific reviewed product. Your purchase of these products through affiliate links helps to generate commission for Christian.net, at no extra cost. Learn more )

Table of Contents

Choosing the right translation, determining the citation style, in-text citations, introducing bible verses, quoting longer passages, citing the bible in references/works cited, ethical considerations, additional tips.

Quoting Bible verses in an essay is a common practice, especially in religious studies, theology, or literature classes. However, it’s essential to do it correctly to maintain academic integrity and avoid unintentional plagiarism. In this comprehensive guide from Academized.com , I’ll walk you through the steps to quote Bible verses properly, ensuring your essay is well-structured and follows academic conventions.

The first step is to choose the right translation. The Bible has been translated into numerous languages and versions, each with slight variations in wording and phrasing. When quoting a Bible verse, it’s crucial to use a reputable and widely accepted translation that aligns with your specific academic or research purposes.

Some popular translations include the King James Version (KJV), New International Version (NIV), and English Standard Version (ESV). The KJV is known for its literary quality and poetic language, while the NIV and ESV are more modern translations aimed at preserving the original meaning while using contemporary language.

If you’re writing for a religious studies or theology course, it’s generally recommended to use a translation approved by the religious institution or denomination you’re studying, as discussed in this Academized review on https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/academized-review-2023-actually-good-mary-walton . For literature or general academic purposes, any widely accepted translation should suffice.

Read more : Christian Blogs To Follow Before Writing a Religious Essay

Next, you’ll need to determine the appropriate citation style. Different academic disciplines and institutions may have their own preferred citation styles. The most common citation styles for quoting Bible verses are:

• MLA (Modern Language Association) style: Commonly used in literature, arts, and humanities. 
• APA (American Psychological Association) style: Frequently used in social sciences, education, and psychology. 
• Chicago/Turabian style: Often used in history, religion, and some humanities fields.

Before you start writing, check with your instructor or consult the style guide to ensure you’re using the correct citation format. Adhering to the proper citation style is crucial for maintaining academic integrity and avoiding plagiarism.

When quoting a Bible verse within the body of your essay, you’ll need to include an in-text citation. The format for in-text citations varies depending on the citation style you’re using.

In MLA style, the in-text citation for a Bible verse should include the book name (abbreviated), chapter number, and verse number(s). For example: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3.16).

In APA style, the in-text citation for a Bible verse should include the book name (not abbreviated), chapter number, and verse number(s), separated by colons. For instance: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16).

In Chicago/Turabian style, the in-text citation for a Bible verse should include the book name (abbreviated), chapter number, and verse number(s), separated by periods, like this: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3.16).

It’s also important to introduce Bible verses properly within the context of your essay. You can provide context by explaining the situation or context in which the verse is being used or referenced. Alternatively, you can use a signal phrase to indicate that you’re quoting a Bible verse, such as “As stated in the Gospel of John,” or “The Bible says.”

Introducing the verse with context or a signal phrase helps to smoothly integrate the quotation into your writing and clarifies the source for the reader.

If you’re quoting a longer passage from the Bible that spans multiple verses, you’ll need to format it differently. In MLA style, for example, longer quotations (four or more lines) should be indented one inch from the left margin and double-spaced. Here’s an example:

As the Apostle Paul writes in his letter to the Ephesians:

For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. (Eph. 2.8-10)

Note the indentation and the use of a signal phrase to introduce the quotation. This format helps to visually separate the longer quotation from your own writing and makes it easier for the reader to follow.

Read more : 26 Life-Changing Bible Verses For Graduation

In addition to in-text citations, you’ll need to include a full citation for the Bible in your references or works cited list at the end of your essay. The format for this citation varies depending on the citation style you’re using.

• MLA Style: In MLA style, the Bible citation should appear as: The Bible. Authorized King James Version, Oxford UP, 1998.
• APA Style: In APA style, the Bible citation should appear as: Bible. (Year of publication). (Version/Translation). (Publisher details). For example: Bible. (2011). New International Version. Biblica.
• Chicago/Turabian Style: In Chicago/Turabian style, the Bible citation should appear as: Bible. Translated by [Translation/Version]. [Publisher details]. For example: Bible. Translated by New International Version. Biblica, 2011.

Including a full citation in your reference list ensures that readers can easily locate the specific version of the Bible you’ve used in your research.

When quoting from the Bible, it’s important to consider ethical implications and potential biases. The Bible is a sacred text for many religions, and quotes should be handled with respect and sensitivity.

Avoid taking verses out of context or using them to promote harmful or discriminatory viewpoints. Be mindful of the historical and cultural contexts in which the verses were written, and strive for a balanced, objective analysis.

If you’re writing about controversial or sensitive topics related to the Bible, it’s advisable to consult with experts or religious authorities to ensure your interpretations are accurate and respectful.

While quoting Bible verses is important, you should also include your own analysis and interpretation, avoiding excessive quotation. Use quotations judiciously, only quoting verses that are directly relevant to your argument or analysis.

Provide context by explaining the significance of the quoted verse and how it relates to your essay’s main points. Don’t assume that the reader has the same level of familiarity with the Bible or the specific context of the verse.

When interpreting or analyzing Bible verses, be sure to back up your claims with evidence from reliable sources, such as scholarly works or authoritative religious texts.

By following these guidelines, you’ll be able to effectively quote Bible verses In your essay while maintaining academic integrity, adhering to citation conventions, and demonstrating a nuanced understanding of the material. Remember, quoting Bible verses is not just about including the text; it’s also about providing context, analysis, and demonstrating your knowledge of the subject matter.

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IN THE GARDEN

How Do You Turn ‘Urban Decay’ Into a Garden?

Apiary Studio in Philadelphia works with whatever a site holds to create landscapes that match the city’s aesthetic: “gritty, punk, improvised, layered with history.”

By Margaret Roach

“Don’t throw it ‘away.’ There is no ‘away.’”

That waste-conscious message was scrawled on the back of a decades-old pickup in the Nebraska town where Martha Keen grew up. The doctor who drove it could have afforded a new one, but no: The truck had plenty of life left in it. Onward.

The phrase “there is no away” has become a tenet guiding Apiary Studio , a Philadelphia landscape firm founded in 2015 by Ms. Keen’s partner, Hans Hesselein, a landscape architect. Ms. Keen joined him soon after, and now the couple design and build outdoor urban spaces, many of them in residential settings, using as light an environmental touch as possible and creatively reusing what each site has to offer.

Yes, even slabs of old concrete, as well as what passes for soil in those urban settings. Really, it’s more like the stuff of a landfill, Mr. Hesselein said, or a postindustrial brownfield.

Standard practice in the trade would be to dig it all up, cart it away and bring in clean soil that would be easier on plants. But contributing to the waste stream doesn’t sit well with the Apiary team. Their design intention is to be regenerative, not to pass along — or compound — the problem.

“From an environmental standpoint, we wanted to leave the soils on site, not to make them some other community’s problem, wherever the landfill is that they would be shipped to,” said Mr. Hesselein, 42, the former director of the Gowanus Canal Conservancy, in Brooklyn. “And so we had to figure out what kinds of plants can handle the sharp drainage, the alkalinity, any pollution, the lack of organic matter.”

Except in vegetable beds and planters, where they use new, clean soil, they try to work with whatever is there.

The pair, who describe themselves as “concerned environmentalists,” said their resolve was reinforced early on, by watching how waste was handled at construction sites. “We saw building these landscapes as an opportunity to subvert that,” said Ms. Keen, 38, a graduate of the professional horticulture program at Longwood Gardens, in Pennsylvania.

Also, she said, “I just don’t necessarily want to be building landscapes that look like everything else.”

What they build instead — by de-paving key areas to open up planting beds and turning the excavated chunks into new walls or mosaic-like hardscapes underfoot — seems to work visually in Philadelphia, too.

“The aesthetic of this town is gritty, punk, improvised, layered with history,” Mr. Hesselein said. “Using recycled materials in the way that we do, particularly the rubble stuff, might not look appropriate anywhere. But in the urban environments where we’re working, they feel very at home aesthetically. That’s another thing that allows our work to be what it is.”

What it is, they are quick to point out, is not something they invented: They gratefully acknowledge pioneering regenerative landscape designers like Julie Bargmann , professor emerita at the University of Virginia School of Architecture and the founder of D.I.R.T. Studio (for Dump It Right There), as well as François Vadepied and Mathieu Gontier, of Wagon Landscaping , in Paris.

Apiary Studio received some acknowledgment of its own in March, claiming a best-in-show award at the Philadelphia Flower Show for “Right of Way,” an exhibit celebrating the beauty and habitat-restoring power of plants growing along the edges of highways — “an underappreciated green garland alongside the disturbance event of the roadways,” as Ms. Keen put it.

But when you’re working with such unconventional materials, there’s always the risk that the result may look too D.I.Y. How does what their website describes as “the adaptive reuse of urban decay” translate into a garden?

The Environmental Cost of Concrete

It’s not unusual for the Apiary team to arrive at a prospective client’s home for a consultation and find the whole place is paved — a common condition, they said, in urban Philadelphia or New York.

The first instinct may be to get rid of it all. But the modest budgets of the firm’s early jobs meant that was a no-go, even apart from Mr. Hesselein and Ms. Keen’s convictions about sustainability. Still, it’s hard to ignore the environmental impact of a material like concrete.

“Concrete has an outsized carbon footprint, as both a global industrial energy consumer and carbon dioxide emitter,” Ms. Keen said. “It also relies on dwindling natural resources to make, such as sand and gravel.”

In the face of so much waste, she said, Apiary’s strategy “is to intercept and build with it, and to limit our reliance on new concrete.”

That’s where another of the firm’s tenets — “addition by subtraction” — comes into play.

A demolition saw with a diamond-bladed circular wheel allows the designers to saw-cut “very clear, deliberate and geometric patterns in the existing paving,” Mr. Hesselein said, performing “surgical subtraction” to create beds with clean edges and “doing it in a very precise way that elevates that remaining concrete.”

The goal: to create something that looks more intentional — even elegant — and then to develop an equally thoughtful new life for the concrete slabs and other rubble that are lifted out and set aside, roughly sorted by size.

“When we start stockpiling these things, you start imagining stuff, and you let it incubate in your mind while you’re working on other tasks — while you’re completing the demolition, while you’re prepping the paving base,” Mr. Hesselein said. “So you’re inevitably, invariably thinking about these things and imagining these scenarios of different patterns.”

A series of mock-ups helps them, and their clients, find their way to a design that turns debris piles into “a mosaic of mixed pavers,” he said.

Other artifacts the site may cough up — old bricks, cobblestones and rocks, sometimes accompanied by irresistible castoffs retrieved from the transfer station — become part of the improvised mosaics. Think of it as terrazzo with a twist.

“When you pave with rubble concrete, these broken-up pieces of sidewalk, it looks a bit like terrazzo,” Ms. Keen said. “Rubble terrazzo, a funny mimicry.”

Thanks to clients who are open to exploration, the couple’s designs have become increasingly refined. Among the tricks they have learned: making sure that several pieces of rubble — up to 25 percent of the design — are as large as possible, to create contrast with all the smaller ones.

“Big, big, big pieces. Big like couch-cushion huge, or the entire slab of a sidewalk,” Ms. Keen said.

“We call them shiners,” she added, because they catch the eye. Trash turned to treasure.

An Urban Plant Palette Emerges

With paths in place and beds defined and ready for plants, the question is: Which ones?

To figure that out, the designers visualize places in nature with similar conditions, the “analogous ecosystems and plants that can handle such soil — with soil in quotes,” Mr. Hesselein said, referring to areas of chalky dirt or outcroppings of shale, or where industry has left behind an altered landscape, like slag heaps.

These are not gardens that welcome ericaceous plants — acid-lovers like azaleas and other Rhododendron, or blueberries. Instead, Ms. Keen said, she and Mr. Hesselein use “plants that have bold texture and take up space.”

One real workhorse is sea kale (Crambe maritima), a giant perennial Brassica with silvery-blue leaves, topped with sprays of small white flowers. “It seems to be happy, and to get enormous in almost any urban condition we put it in,” Ms. Keen said. “Like three-foot-by-three-foot rhubarb size.”

Another perennial they turn to is cardoon (Cynara cardunculus), a cousin of the artichoke. “I have a real penchant for glaucous plant material,” she said. “Blue-gray tones seems to marry well with the concrete and rubble material.”

Herbs like common sage, rue, rosemary, lavender and santolina fit the profile, too, happily thriving without irrigation or nutrient-rich soil. Other tough Mediterranean favorites: donkey tail spurge (Euphorbia myrsinites), wood spurge (Euphorbia amygdaloides var. robbiae) and bronze fennel.

A striking color contrast that also finds its way into nearly every design is native butterfly milkweed (Asclepias tuberosa).

These are unexpected, experimental landscapes, the couple concede, but they are determined to continue experimenting — for the creative challenge they thrive on, to pursue their environmental goals and to provoke new thinking about our built landscapes.

“Only one person has ever come to us and said, ‘I want this recycled landscape aesthetic in my garden,’” Mr. Hesselein said. “Only one client ever.”

But they like to imagine a day when people will have seen enough examples in the world to start asking for such sustainable thinking in garden design.

“I believe that the people who hire us are looking to break from convention,” Ms. Keen said. “And, like us, understand that even garden making is not absolved of having a carbon footprint. And that, like we do, they love how recycled landscapes look.”

Margaret Roach is the creator of the website and podcast A Way to Garden , and a book of the same name.

If you have a gardening question, email it to Margaret Roach at [email protected], and she may address it in a future column.

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