When I began copy editing for The Mint Hill Times, I noticed a few problems:
- Writers routinely failed to include speaker tags with quotations or to include a source for clearly paraphrased facts and figures.
- Writers were routinely making mistakes with basic punctuation and capitalization surrounding quotations.
- Many writers relied on either quotations or paraphrased information, failing to mix the two in a way that created a compelling story.
To address these problems, I created the following tutorial.
A quotation must always be accompanied by a speaker tag. If you’re only interviewing one person and you’ve just mentioned their name, it can be as simple as “he said” or “she said,” but it needs to be there. There are three places your speaker tag can sit: before the quoted text, after it or in the middle.
Speaker Tag Before a Quotation
The gang remarked, “Lola’s candidate is a sure bet.”
- Place a comma after the speaker tag.
- Capitalize the first letter of the quotation.
- End punctuation goes inside the quotation marks.
Speaker Tag After a Quotation
“Lola’s candidate is a sure bet,” the gang remarked.
- Place a comma at the end of the quotation before the quotation mark.
- Do not capitalize the first letter of the speaker tag (unless it’s someone’s name, of course)
Speaker Tags in the Middle (interrupting a sentence)
“The scent of tuna,” she continued, “brings it all back.”
- Place a comma after the first portion of quoted text. The comma goes inside quotation marks.
- Do not capitalize the first letter of the speaker tag (unless it’s someone’s name).
- Place a comma after the speaker tag.
- Do not capitalize the first letter of the second portion of quoted text.
- End punctuation goes inside quotation marks.
Speaker Tags in the Middle (at the end of a sentence)
“That’s why I always write my name on my lunchbox,” Anna said. ‘You just never know where you might leave it.”
- Place a comma after the first portion of quoted text. The comma goes inside quotation marks.
- Note the first letter of the speaker tag is capitalized here – but only because it’s a proper name.
- This speaker tag has been dropped in the middle of a portion of quoted text, but not in the middle of a sentence. You can tell because the second part – “You just never know where you might leave it.” – could stand on its own. In this case, place a period after the speaker tag, and start the second portion of quoted text with a capital letter.
Speaker Tags “in the middle” are often your best choice for lengthy quotations in news articles. Here are a few examples.
- “Massages for Mother’s Day are a wonderful reward for all our moms do,” says Lisa Lane, owner of Massage Sanctuary. “A massage embodies all that we want in our busy schedules: a time to relax, unwind, to be quiet and still, and to give our minds some rest as well. Once a year every mom should enjoy a time that celebrates her!”
- “I wasn’t fast enough to be getting scholarships or anything like that,” she clarifies, “but I was good enough to where he noticed, and he helped me through the rest of the application process.”
Paraphrasing and Attribution
If you pull information from a company’s website, make sure to paraphrase (not copy and paste) AND credit the source. Here’s an example of information I might want to use in an article on Abbey Rose Floral Artistry pulled directly from their website.
Fresh flowers are a wonderful gift for every occasion. Abbey Rose Floral Artistry, a leading Mint Hill florist, has a wide selection of flowers and gifts, from romantic Valentine’s Day roses to tasteful sympathy arrangements to gift baskets and Mother’s Day flowers . No matter the reason, whether it’s your anniversary, a birthday or a get well gesture, Abbey Rose Floral Artistry can provide beautiful and inexpensive arrangements to suit your budget. Trust Abbey Rose Floral Artistry to deliver exquisite flowers and gift baskets in Mint Hill NC and surrounding areas including Charlotte, Matthews and Harrisburg.
If I wanted to use this information in an article, I might write this (note that I’ve also hyperlinked the word “website” to take you to the place where I found the info, just to make sure I’m giving credit to the source).
According to their website, Abbey Rose Floral Artistry offers a vast selection of flowers and gifts for all occasions. Whether you need roses for Valentine’s Day or a tasteful sympathy arrangement, Abbey Rose can create a beautiful arrangement tailored to your budget. Located in Mint Hill, NC, Abbey Rose can deliver to surrounding areas including Charlotte, Matthews and Harrisburg.
Mixing Quotations with Paraphrase
If you email questions to a source, it’s tempting to copy and paste their responses and call it done, but remember: you’re the writer. Weave powerful quotations from your source into the larger story you want to tell.
Here is an example of a lengthy story a source emailed me.
So, today is a great example of teaching during COVID-19. I started the day by taking 3 kids to the doctor for their annual physicals. It was pretty cool that I could do it without taking a sick day, because my school is remote on Wednesdays, but also, it cut significantly into the time I could use to work on grading, e-mails, lesson planning, etc. I took the youngest to daycare afterward. Usually my husband does this because he’s still working virtually from home, but when I’m home on Wednesdays, that falls to me. I got home with the two other kids around 10 and worked with them on making up old assignments or redoing assignments with low grades, and started working with them on completing their virtual assignments for the day.
Instead of having lunch with the family, because my husband was available to facilitate that, I took a nap.
I then sat in my bed for my required online office hours meeting on Zoom for an hour and a half. I would have been overjoyed to work with any student who attended on making up assignments or answering questions, but not a single student showed up. So I worked on other things instead. This is really the essence of teaching right now–sporadic face to face time with some kids, and literally none with others, and overwhelming apathy from all parties involved.
After this meeting, I worked with my own kids on more virtual assignments until it was time for back to back meetings with social workers–one via Zoom and one in person. We’re foster parents, so we have monthly meetings with several different parties in addition to weekly therapy sessions and trainings. Meanwhile my 13 year old had a virtual therapy session upstairs.
Forty-five minutes after the last meeting it was time to pick up the youngest, which I also often do on virtual days. More virtual assignments while trying to do my own schoolwork while my husband managed getting dinner ready. Then baths and bed for the kids.
Normally my husband and I would have our evening routine of a Star Trek episode and some kind of mixed drink or dessert–really our only piece of normalcy during this entire past year–but tonight my husband went to bed early, so I stayed up late working on things I normally wouldn’t have time for. *sigh*
Overall, I have been extremely glad to have all of this extra time at home over the last year–time to do projects around the house and time to really get involved in our kids’ education. I really enjoy having a more flexible schedule. But the day to day of it is getting wearisome. Having to totally change our schedule and expectations every time the school schedules change (which at this point feels like a weekly occurrence), and simply just never having time to focus because everyone has such conflicting needs is exhausting. I’m starting to daydream about having a more predictably scheduled life, when at this point in the school year I’m usually daydreaming about having full days without a schedule over summer break!
Here is what I wound up writing. Note that I did use a LOT of her words – I’m not saying you can’t do that if it’s relevant. But I took out some parts that didn’t feel necessary, paraphrased others, and in general, wove her words together in a way that I felt made sense for the story.
For Queen’s Grant High School performing arts teacher and foster parent Elizabeth Mills, the past year has felt like a never-ending cycle of Zoom and schoolwork, shifting and frequently multitasking between responsibilities to the students she teaches and her own family at home.
“Today is a great example,” said Elizabeth on Wednesday, March 10. “I started the day by taking three kids to the doctor for their annual physicals. It was pretty cool that I could do it without taking a sick day (because my school is remote on Wednesdays) but also, it cut significantly into the time I could use to work on grading, e-mails, and lesson planning.”
After a trip to the doctor, Elizabeth dropped the youngest off at daycare, a task that usually falls to her husband (who is currently working from home), but she takes over on Wednesdays when she’s remote as well. “I got home with the two other kids around 10:00 and worked with them on making up old assignments or redoing assignments with low grades,” she says, “and started working with them on completing their virtual assignments for the day.”
After lunch, Mills turned her attention to her drama and dance students, sitting in her bed for an hour and a half of required online office hours. “I would have been overjoyed to work with any student who attended on making up assignments or answering questions,” says Mills, “but not a single student showed up, so I worked on other things instead. This is really the essence of teaching right now–sporadic face to face time with some kids, and literally none with others, and overwhelming apathy from all parties involved.”
After her office hours, Mills switched back to parent duty, working with her own kids on virtual assignments until it was time for back-to-back meetings with social workers, both in person and via Zoom. “We’re foster parents, so we have monthly meetings with several different parties in addition to weekly therapy sessions and trainings,” says Mills. “Meanwhile, my 13-year-old had a virtual therapy session upstairs.”
After an evening of juggling assistance with her children’s virtual assignments and her own schoolwork while her husband made dinner followed by baths and bed for the kids, Mills and her husband usually sit down for what she calls “our only piece of normalcy during this entire past year:” an episode of Star Trek with dessert or a drink. Sometimes these days, though, they’re too tired and overwhelmed for that. On Wednesday, Elizabeth’s husband went to bed early and she stayed up late working on other things.
Looking back on the past year as a whole, Elizabeth sees the positive. “Overall, I have been extremely glad to have all of this extra time at home over the last year,” she says, “time to do projects around the house and time to really get involved in our kids’ education. I really enjoy having a more flexible schedule.”
But day to day, moment to moment, it can be hard. “Having to totally change our schedule and expectations every time the school schedules change (which at this point feels like a weekly occurrence), and simply just never having time to focus because everyone has such conflicting needs is exhausting,” she says. Although many people are frustrated with the monotony of the past year, with five children ranging in age from 5 to 16 at four separate schools, Mills feels the opposite. “I’m starting to daydream about having a more predictably scheduled life, when at this point in the school year I’m usually daydreaming about having full days without a schedule over summer break!”