Two ways to bring an article into your essay
On the GED essay, you read two articles and decide which one makes the better-supported argument. To show a scorer why you decided what you did, you have to bring the articles into your own writing. There are two ways to do that.
- Quoting. You copy the writer’s exact words, and you put them inside quotation marks. Quotation marks are the two small marks that look like this: “ at the start and ” at the end.
- Paraphrasing. You take the writer’s idea and say it in your own words and your own sentence. A paraphrase gets no quotation marks, because the words are yours.
Both are good. A strong essay usually uses both. This page shows you how to do each one, and how to avoid the one mistake that mixes them up.
What quotation marks promise. When a reader sees quotation marks, the reader believes that every word inside them is exactly what the writer wrote, in the same order. Quotation marks are a promise: “These are the writer’s words, not mine.” If even a few words inside the marks are different, the promise is broken. The words inside quotation marks must match the article exactly, or they should not be inside quotation marks at all.
A short article to work with
Every example on this page comes from this one short article. Read it once now. You will come back to it many times.
Article
Let Everyone Ride
1Last year the city ran a test. For twelve months, five bus routes charged no fare at all. Ridership on those five routes went up 24 percent on weekdays and 31 percent on weekends.
2The city says free buses would cost $630 million a year in lost fares. That is a real number, and I will not pretend it is small. But fares are not the only cost of collecting fares. Drivers spend time taking cash and settling arguments over the fare box, and every stop takes longer because of it. On the five free routes, buses got from one end of the route to the other about 8 percent faster.
3A bus that is faster and fuller serves everyone who rides it. Free fares are the cheapest way I know for the city to get that kind of bus.
This article was written for this lesson. The writer, the city and the numbers are made up, the same way the practice essay sets are.
Part 1 · Quoting
Rule 1. Copy every word exactly.
Every word, every number and every small word like the or of must be the same as in the article, in the same order. Do not quote from memory. Look back at the article and copy.
A good way to check: put your finger on the first word of your quotation, then on the same word in the article. Move both fingers forward one word at a time. If they ever stop matching, fix your quotation.
Rule 2. Say whose words they are.
Before the quotation, tell the reader who wrote it. You can use the writer’s name or the article’s name. Some common ways to start:
- Whitfield writes,
- According to the article,
- In the second paragraph, Whitfield admits that
- The writer of Article 1 points out that
You do not need page numbers or any special form on the GED. Naming the writer or the article is enough.
Rule 3. Quote a short piece, not a whole paragraph.
You almost never need a whole sentence, and never a whole paragraph. Quote the few words that matter most, and build your own sentence around them. Here is one sentence from the article:
That is a real number, and I will not pretend it is small.
Here are two correct ways to quote it. The first quotes the whole sentence. The second quotes only a few words and fits them into the student’s own sentence. The second is usually better, because it keeps the essay in your voice.
Whitfield writes, “That is a real number, and I will not pretend it is small.”
Whitfield admits that the cost of free buses is “a real number” and says he “will not pretend it is small.”
Rule 4. Put the punctuation in the right places.
Look again at the two correct examples above, and notice three things.
- After writes, there is a comma, and the quotation begins with a capital letter. You use the comma when the quotation is a full sentence that follows writes, says or states.
- After that, there is no comma. When the quoted words fit inside your own sentence, no comma is needed before them, and they begin with a small letter unless the word is a name.
- The period goes inside the closing quotation mark, like this: small.” The same is true for a comma. This is the rule in American English.
Rule 5. If you leave words out of the middle, show it.
Sometimes the words you want are split by words you do not need. You may leave out the middle, but you must put three dots in the place where the words were. The three dots are called an ellipsis. They tell the reader, “Something was here, and I left it out.”
Drivers spend time taking cash and settling arguments over the fare box, and every stop takes longer because of it.
Whitfield writes, “Drivers spend time taking cash … and every stop takes longer because of it.”
Only leave words out if the meaning stays the same. You can never use an ellipsis to make the writer say something the writer did not say.
Rule 6. After the quotation, explain what it shows.
A quotation by itself does not earn points. The scorer wants to know why you chose it and what it proves about the argument. So after every quotation, write at least one sentence of your own that explains it.
Whitfield admits that the cost of free buses is “a real number” and says he “will not pretend it is small.” By admitting the biggest problem with his own plan, he makes the rest of his argument easier to trust.
Part 2 · Paraphrasing
To paraphrase is to take a writer’s idea and say it again in your own words and your own sentence. A paraphrase is often shorter than the original. It has no quotation marks, but you still say where the idea came from.
Rule 1. Keep the meaning exactly the same.
Your words can change. The meaning cannot. Do not make the writer sound surer, angrier or more extreme than the article does. If the writer says “about 8 percent,” your paraphrase should not say “much faster.”
Rule 2. Keep the numbers exactly the same.
Numbers are facts, not wording. You may write 24 percent or $630 million in a paraphrase without quotation marks. But copy the numbers carefully, and keep them attached to the right thing. Twenty-four percent is the weekday rise in riders, not the weekend rise.
Rule 3. Use your own sentence, not the writer’s sentence with a few words changed.
A paraphrase is not the article’s sentence with two or three words swapped out. If most of your words and the order of your words come from the article, then it is really a quotation, and it needs quotation marks. Here is a way to make sure your paraphrase is your own:
- Read the sentence or paragraph until you understand it.
- Look away from the article.
- Write the idea the way you would explain it to a friend.
- Look back and check two things: the meaning is the same, and the numbers are right.
Rule 4. Still say where the idea came from.
Even without quotation marks, tell the reader whose idea it is: Whitfield reports that… or According to the article…
Here is one sentence from the article, and two ways to paraphrase it. One works and one does not.
Ridership on those five routes went up 24 percent on weekdays and 31 percent on weekends.
According to Whitfield, during the test more people rode the five free routes: about a quarter more on weekdays, and even more on weekends.
New words, a new sentence, the same meaning. “About a quarter” is a fair way to say 24 percent. You could also keep the exact numbers.
According to Whitfield, ridership on the five routes went up 24 percent on weekdays and 31 percent on weekends.
This is the article’s sentence with one word changed: “those” became “the.” Either put quotation marks around the article’s exact words, or write the idea in a new sentence.
Part 3 · The mistake that mixes them up
The most common mistake is to put quotation marks around words that are close to the article but not exact. It usually happens when a writer quotes from memory, or starts to copy and then drifts into their own words halfway through. The result is neither a quotation nor a paraphrase.
On the five free routes, buses got from one end of the route to the other about 8 percent faster.
Whitfield says “the buses went 8 percent faster on the free routes.”
The words in the quotation marks are not the article’s words. The article never says “the buses went,” and the rest of the words are in a different order. The word “about” has also disappeared, which makes the number sound more exact than Whitfield said it was.
Why does this matter on the test? The scorer reads your essay with the articles in front of them. If they check your quotation and find different words, they may decide you misread the article. At best, the quotation does not help you.
There are two ways to fix it. Either one is correct.
Fix 1: make the quotation exact
Whitfield reports that on the free routes, buses “got from one end of the route to the other about 8 percent faster.”
Fix 2: take away the quotation marks and paraphrase
Whitfield reports that buses on the free routes finished their trips about 8 percent faster.
So when you find a quotation that does not match, you have a choice: change the words so they match exactly, or take the quotation marks away and make the sentence your own.
Part 4 · When to quote and when to paraphrase
Quote when…
the writer’s exact words matter. For example: a strong or unusual phrase; a claim you are about to question, so that nobody can say you changed it; or an admission, like Whitfield’s “I will not pretend it is small.”
Paraphrase when…
the idea matters more than the wording. For example: a fact or a number; the main point of a whole paragraph; or a long passage you need to sum up in one sentence.
In a 45-minute essay, a few short quotations and more paraphrases is a good balance. Too many quotations make an essay sound like the article instead of like you.
Practice
For each one, look back at the article and decide before you open the answer.
1. Is this quotation correct?
Whitfield writes that ridership went up “24 percent on weekdays and 31 percent on weekends.”
Answer
Yes. The words inside the quotation marks match paragraph 1 exactly, the writer is named, and the period is inside the closing quotation mark.
2. Is this quotation correct?
Whitfield says “free buses cost the city $630 million.”
Answer
No, for two reasons. First, the words are not exact. The article says: “The city says free buses would cost $630 million a year in lost fares.”
Second, the sentence gets the source wrong. The $630 million is the city’s estimate, which Whitfield reports. And the article says “would cost,” about the future, not “cost.”
One correct version: Whitfield reports that, according to the city, free buses “would cost $630 million a year in lost fares.”
3. Is this paraphrase correct?
Whitfield admits that making the buses free would cost the city a lot of money.
Answer
Yes. It uses new words and a new sentence, it has no quotation marks, it names the writer, and the meaning matches paragraph 2, where Whitfield says he will not pretend the cost is small.
4. Is this paraphrase correct?
Whitfield says the $630 million cost is small compared to what the city gains.
Answer
No. It changes the meaning. Whitfield says the opposite: “I will not pretend it is small.” He argues that free buses are worth it anyway, but he never calls the cost small. A paraphrase can change the words, never the meaning.
5. What is wrong with this sentence?
According to Whitfield, drivers spend time taking cash and settling arguments over the fare box.
Answer
These are the article’s exact words with no quotation marks. Almost every word, in the same order, comes from paragraph 2. That makes it a quotation, and a quotation needs quotation marks. There are two ways to fix it.
Quote it: According to Whitfield, “Drivers spend time taking cash and settling arguments over the fare box.”
Or paraphrase it: According to Whitfield, collecting fares slows drivers down, because they have to handle cash and deal with riders who argue about paying.
6. Now write your own.
Paraphrase paragraph 3 in one sentence. Write it first, on paper or in your writing. Then open the answer and compare.
One possible answer
Whitfield concludes that free fares are the least expensive way for the city to make its buses quicker and more crowded, which helps every rider.
Yours will use different words, and that is the point. Check yours for three things: it keeps Whitfield’s meaning, it says the idea is his, and it has no quotation marks.
Before you send your essay
- Find every pair of quotation marks in your essay.
- For each one, find the same words in the article and check them word by word.
- If they match, keep them. If they do not match, either fix the words so they match exactly, or take away the quotation marks and make the sentence your own.
- For every paraphrase, check that the meaning and the numbers are the same as in the article.
- After every quotation, make sure you wrote at least one sentence saying what it shows.