5 ms·

I'm sorry, but you are simply wrong. Quotes are, well, quotes, and if their grammar absolutely needs to be edited to fit your prose, then that means you shouldn

I'm sorry, but you are simply wrong. Quotes are, well, quotes, and if their grammar absolutely needs to be edited to fit your prose, then that means you shouldn't be using that quote. Editing a quote should be done with grave solemnity -- you are changing someone else's words -- and only to clarify meaning that was disturbed when you extracted the quote from its natural context. Anything else can be handled in your prose. (I don't consider snipping or eliding to be editing the quote, unless it is done deceptively to suggest something that was not present in the original. It's just a way to, essentially, make two quotations at once.) If what you suggest was truly necessary, wouldn't most complex dialogue in fiction be incomprehensible? Yet it isn't... unless it gets mangled. As the article's Romeo and Juliet example clearly demonstrates.

atoav 6y ago
IMO using ellipsis [...] or modifying quotes in order to present them in a new context is totally okay, as long as you don't alter the original intended meaning fundamentally by doing so. After all quoting someone at all is already an act of tearing their words out of the context they have been put in by that author. You can misquote someone badly without brackets, while you can quote someone faithfully with brackets.
- Rapzid 6y ago
  > as long as you don't alter the original intended meaning fundamentally by doing so Yeah but that's almost always what's happening when you see those tiny quotes; the author is pushing a narrative and using a sound it to sell it. Particularly in political news and places like Slate..
  - atoav 6y ago
    No it isn't. If $Author writes: "The foundations of the notion of fluid modernity (as outlined in the previous chapters) is fundamentally the simultaneity of dichotomies". And I quote them as: "The foundations of the notion of fluid modernity [...] is fundamentally the simultaneity of dichotomies". I am not in any way changing their intended message. The author in that case reminded their reader about something they read in the previous chapter, something my readers cannot be reminded of, unless they also read the book recently. Therefore skipping that part with an ellipsis arguably would even be in the interest of $Author, because it isn't their quote that throws my readers off without $Author's fault. This is just one example. Another very typical case would be if I'd write about $Person and quote someone who wrote "Jules Favre traveled to Königsberg in 1871 to negotiate peace with the Prussians, where he was met with ..." Then if I'd write in the context of my text: "[He] traveled to Königsberg in 1871 to negotiate peace with the Prussians, where he was met with ..." wouldn't this again be totally okay if it improves readability in the context of my text? The stuff I outline here is extremely common in theoretical, philosophical or historical texts. The existence of abusive misquoting doesn't mean one cannot use brackets in a responsible and good way (and you can also misquote without brackets).
metafunctor 6y ago
This might be a language dependent thing. In my native language, Finnish, I don't think I've ever seen a quoted passage, quote marks intact, edited to grammatically fit in a sentence. A quote is a verbatim reproduction, a holy thing. Rather, you would work your sentence to accommodate for the quote. If you cannot do that, you'll leave out the quotes, and they are your words instead of a quote. Just because a quote doesn't fit your favourite sentence may not mean that you “shouldn't be using that quote”.
- Buttons840 6y ago
  Do Finnish words have "tense"?
syndacks 6y ago
Simply wrong according to who? You? The MLA[0]? Some other "authoritative" source? Why is your third paragraph in parenthesis? Using your own logic, you should either remove that paragraph or re-write it without parenthesis. I could go on, but it doesn't matter because I understand what you are saying. Writing is about conveying meaning in a chain of endless signifiers, "words, words, words..." On one hand, this is utterly impossible if we nitpick to hell, on the other, it's an amazing piece of technology that works because of convention, which you and the author eschew. "Ah yes, convention, that's why we shouldn't be using brackets in quotes becau..." 0. https://style.mla.org/removing-letters-empty-brackets/ https://style.mla.org/removing-letters-empty-brackets/
theon144 6y ago
>If what you suggest was truly necessary, wouldn't most complex dialogue in fiction be incomprehensible? ...no? Fiction (or really any prose) has context and continuity, so it doesn't need to disambiguate. Context and continuity are lost when an excerpt is lifted as a quote. Hence the usage of [brackets]. Since this is painfully obvious, I'm struggling to see what did you mean to illustrate by referring to "complex dialogue"?
tomc1985 6y ago
I should have mentioned I was coming from a reporting context. The AP style guide we were held to found it to be permissible. I agree that in fiction or other forms of prose, that the writer should try and mold the surrounding context to fit the quote. But when I did journalism I didn't always have a lot of time to do so. If you're using quotes heavily, from a variety of sources, not all of them are going to fit -- you can either spend a long time rewriting your text until you get it right, or you can do some selective editing and preserve the flow without having to refactor your entire piece. That said I don't have a hard rule about switching perspective. If you can make it work without bracketing quotes, great! But it's one of those things you have to handle with care, and isn't always practical. Hence, brackets.
dragonwriter 6y ago
> Editing a quote should be done with grave solemnity -- you are changing someone else's words Editorial interpolation isn't changing someone else's words, it's explicit, clearly delineated, paraphrasing. > I don't consider snipping or eliding to be editing the quote, It absolutely is editing, which is why it also is usually also marked by explicit editorial marks in brackets just as editorial interpolation is, except when you are snipping from the beginning or end of the quote, and even then may be marked if you aren't doing so at natural breaks in the source text. As for interpolation, you use explicit marks to show that you've done it, and in either case it is wrong to do it to change the meaning.

atoav 6y ago

IMO using ellipsis [...] or modifying quotes in order to present them in a new context is totally okay, as long as you don't alter the original intended meaning fundamentally by doing so. After all quoting someone at all is already an act of tearing their words out of the context they have been put in by that author. You can misquote someone badly without brackets, while you can quote someone faithfully with brackets.

Rapzid 6y ago
> as long as you don't alter the original intended meaning fundamentally by doing so Yeah but that's almost always what's happening when you see those tiny quotes; the author is pushing a narrative and using a sound it to sell it. Particularly in political news and places like Slate..
- atoav 6y ago
  No it isn't. If $Author writes: "The foundations of the notion of fluid modernity (as outlined in the previous chapters) is fundamentally the simultaneity of dichotomies". And I quote them as: "The foundations of the notion of fluid modernity [...] is fundamentally the simultaneity of dichotomies". I am not in any way changing their intended message. The author in that case reminded their reader about something they read in the previous chapter, something my readers cannot be reminded of, unless they also read the book recently. Therefore skipping that part with an ellipsis arguably would even be in the interest of $Author, because it isn't their quote that throws my readers off without $Author's fault. This is just one example. Another very typical case would be if I'd write about $Person and quote someone who wrote "Jules Favre traveled to Königsberg in 1871 to negotiate peace with the Prussians, where he was met with ..." Then if I'd write in the context of my text: "[He] traveled to Königsberg in 1871 to negotiate peace with the Prussians, where he was met with ..." wouldn't this again be totally okay if it improves readability in the context of my text? The stuff I outline here is extremely common in theoretical, philosophical or historical texts. The existence of abusive misquoting doesn't mean one cannot use brackets in a responsible and good way (and you can also misquote without brackets).

metafunctor 6y ago

This might be a language dependent thing. In my native language, Finnish, I don't think I've ever seen a quoted passage, quote marks intact, edited to grammatically fit in a sentence. A quote is a verbatim reproduction, a holy thing. Rather, you would work your sentence to accommodate for the quote. If you cannot do that, you'll leave out the quotes, and they are your words instead of a quote. Just because a quote doesn't fit your favourite sentence may not mean that you “shouldn't be using that quote”.

Buttons840 6y ago
Do Finnish words have "tense"?

syndacks 6y ago

Simply wrong according to who? You? The MLA[0]? Some other "authoritative" source? Why is your third paragraph in parenthesis? Using your own logic, you should either remove that paragraph or re-write it without parenthesis. I could go on, but it doesn't matter because I understand what you are saying. Writing is about conveying meaning in a chain of endless signifiers, "words, words, words..." On one hand, this is utterly impossible if we nitpick to hell, on the other, it's an amazing piece of technology that works because of convention, which you and the author eschew. "Ah yes, convention, that's why we shouldn't be using brackets in quotes becau..." 0. https://style.mla.org/removing-letters-empty-brackets/ https://style.mla.org/removing-letters-empty-brackets/

theon144 6y ago

>If what you suggest was truly necessary, wouldn't most complex dialogue in fiction be incomprehensible? ...no? Fiction (or really any prose) has context and continuity, so it doesn't need to disambiguate. Context and continuity are lost when an excerpt is lifted as a quote. Hence the usage of [brackets]. Since this is painfully obvious, I'm struggling to see what did you mean to illustrate by referring to "complex dialogue"?

tomc1985 6y ago

I should have mentioned I was coming from a reporting context. The AP style guide we were held to found it to be permissible. I agree that in fiction or other forms of prose, that the writer should try and mold the surrounding context to fit the quote. But when I did journalism I didn't always have a lot of time to do so. If you're using quotes heavily, from a variety of sources, not all of them are going to fit -- you can either spend a long time rewriting your text until you get it right, or you can do some selective editing and preserve the flow without having to refactor your entire piece. That said I don't have a hard rule about switching perspective. If you can make it work without bracketing quotes, great! But it's one of those things you have to handle with care, and isn't always practical. Hence, brackets.

dragonwriter 6y ago

> Editing a quote should be done with grave solemnity -- you are changing someone else's words Editorial interpolation isn't changing someone else's words, it's explicit, clearly delineated, paraphrasing. > I don't consider snipping or eliding to be editing the quote, It absolutely is editing, which is why it also is usually also marked by explicit editorial marks in brackets just as editorial interpolation is, except when you are snipping from the beginning or end of the quote, and even then may be marked if you aren't doing so at natural breaks in the source text. As for interpolation, you use explicit marks to show that you've done it, and in either case it is wrong to do it to change the meaning.