Unit 3: Summarizing and Responding to Writing
19 Partial Quotes
Sometimes an author may use a single word or phrase in a sentence in a way that is unique or creative and thus difficult to paraphrase. In this situation, using a partial quotation (or partial quote) is probably more appropriate than directly quoting the entire sentence.
Partial quotations a good option when you only want to include only a few specific exact words from a text. This allows you to integrate and utilize important words or short phrases from another author’s text without using an excessive amount of direct quotations in your writing. Like any other time you use another writer’s words or ideas, you must provide a proper citation.
Here is an example of a partial quote taken from an article written by Fischer:
Original sentence:
On some campuses, many students come from the same set of internationally focused high schools in Beijing and Shanghai and import their cliques and social networks (Fischer, 2011, p. 15).
Partial quote:
Some students from the same international high schools in large Chinese cities will “import their cliques” with them when they come to U.S. universities (Fischer, 2011, p. 15).
