Some Basic Rules of
Writing for the One-Page Papers
1. Titles of
books, poems, songs, and other complete works are italicized; they are not set off in quotation marks. Titles of
chapters and essays are enclosed in quotation marks.
2. When citing
the texts, use paraphrasing rather than quotes; use short quotes rather than
long (2+lines) quotes.
3. In
punctuating quotations, if you introduce the quotation with the word “that”
(what Turabian calls a run-in quotation), punctuate
it like this:
She said that “experience is the basis of all art.”
Note:
· no punctuation/commas before or after
the word “that”
· no capitalization of the first word
of the quote (unless, of course, it is a proper name)
· your whole sentence must be
grammatically correct even if you only quote a sentence fragment
4. If you
introduce the quote with a verb such as “said,” “wrote,” “argued,” or “maintained,”
without the word “that,” punctuate your sentence like this:
She said, “All experience is
valuable.”
Note:
· A comma follows the introductory verb
· A space follows the comma
· The first word of the quote is
capitalized whether it was originally the first word of a sentence or not
· The quote is a grammatically complete
sentence or part of a grammatically complete sentence.
5. Never begin or end a quote with
ellipsis points (Chicago Style Rule). Only use ellipses in the middle of quotes
to indicate that you left something out of the original passage. Chicago Style
says the assumption is that a write who quotes material always took the quoted
material out of an existing context; thus ellipses are superfluous.
6. Use brackets—[
]—to enclose a word or words that you added to the original quote.