Use citations correctly

Citations are direct quotes of something written or spoken, and a general rule is that quotes should be used sparingly, and be chosen well. Quotes are used when the actual phrasing, word choice, is important and creates meaning, or when the quote adds to your text’s credibility.

Quotes should stand out clearly from your independent text and should be no longer than 6-7 lines. Long and frequent quotes subtract from the independence of your text.

Short quotes (less than 1 line) are situated between quotation marks in-text, like:

The presidential candidate said: “Health cannot be questions of money; health is question of will.” at the American Public Health Association’s annual conference in Chicago in 1999,

Longer quotes can be marked by indentation and a line skip before and after e.g. as here, where a health administrator from a municipality is interviewed regarding barriers and opportunities for implementation of a new working method:

 

“(…) we really like this method and would be happy to use it in our daily work. But, we have no personal capacities and access to databases to use it routinely. So a key facilitator for implementation would be capacity building and provision of access to data (…)”.

Source: Nielsen, Steffan 2012. En procesevaluering af TTA-projektet i to kommuner, unpublished paper (thesis)

If words or sentences are omitted in quotes they are marked by (…) or […] .

In general, sources are always cited verbatim, even if the original quote is incorrect.

When re-using previous assignments you have written, you must treat them like any other source material by quoting them directly or referring to them in a note and including them in the bibliography.

When reference is made to unprinted material such as other people’s exam assignments or information provided verbally, the same rules regarding direct quotation and footnotes apply.

You must treat references or quotations from websites in the same way as other material and use quotation marks or a footnote specifying the URL.

Learn how to make references in the following.