Q. What's the difference between paraphrasing and quoting?

Whether you're creating in-text citations in APA or MLA:

Paraphrasing is a way to demonstrate that you understand what an author wrote. To correctly paraphrase, you must completely re-word the passage or content using your own words. Changing a few words here and there isn't enough to paraphrase and may instead be plagiarism, even if it's unintentional. Remember that you must give credit to any information, words, or ideas that are not your own, regardless of the source type (e.g., book, article, podcast, video, speech, etc.).

Make sure to also include an in-text citation whenever you paraphrase.

Examples of paraphrasing and citing paraphrases in APA style and MLA style.

Quoting is taking a sentence or passage directly from a source without little to no modification. To identify a quote, you place quotation marks around the selected passage. For long quotes, you may need to create a block by indenting the quoted text; in which case you'd leave the quotation marks out. Both APA and MLA have slightly different rules on when to create a block quote.

Quotes might also be considered indirect if you're not quoting the original source (APA, MLA).

Make sure to include an in-text citation whenever you quote.

Examples of quotations and citing quotes in APA style and MLA style.