Am I allowed to have direct quotes in a History EE?

[John Lakers]

Hi, I'm doing a History EE and I want to use a quotation said by someone. The quote is more than 3 lines long. Do I have to trim it down and shorten the quote? Do I have to indent it and single space like a block quote? Will I have to explain the meaning of what the person said?

[khimberleigh]

Quotes should be short, as in one line would be the absolute maximum. Just pick a short phrase from the quote that supports your point the most. You don't have to format the quote any different to the rest of your writing (except of course for quotation marks).

No, it's not an English essay so you don't have to explain the quote. The purpose of quotes in history essays is to 1) provide evidence for your point if the quote is from a primary source, 2) be used to evaluate historiography if it's a secondary source or 3) to give your argument more credibility again if you are quoting from a secondary source as it shows that there are historians that support the same view. Remember, quotes should not be used to state an argument or to explain your point, you should do all that in your own words, quotes should be used to back up what you are saying.

I feel like I should give some examples:

1) Russia's huge army following WWII led to tensions between the USA and USSR. The Red army had a massive 381 divisions to the USA's relatively small 91. This tension was exacerbated by Stalin's refusal to reduce the size of his army which is evident in Truman's declaration that "force is the only thing the Russians understand."

2)While some historians such as Keegan believe that "in no sense did [the Schlieffen Plan] precipitate the First World War," the presence of a war plan and therefore assurance that war was always a possibility has led others such as AJP Taylor to purport that "Schlieffen...pulled the trigger" for war.

3) Leaders were a significant cause of tension during the start of the Cold War. This point is reiterated by historians such as Gaddis who argued that "as long as Stalin was running the Soviet Union a cold war was inevitable."

These examples correspond to the numbered descriptions above by the way. Also, my explanations are a bit short and vague but I hope you kind of get the idea of how to quote. And you may have noticed the [square brackets]. Use those when you are replacing a word or phrase in the quote. In my above example, I think the quote said 'it' or something similar, so I replaced it with the proper noun 'the Schlieffen Plan' which you are totally allowed to do just be sure to put your changes in square brackets.

[iamyourmum]

If you're using MLA format, quotes that are 3 lines and longer should be indented out.

FYI, i had a 3 line quote in my essay.

[khimberleigh]

You can have 3 line long quotes, and you would format it how iamyourmum said if you are using MLA, however I strongly advise against it.

Just pick out the really important bits and use that. The examiners will mark you on your use of quotes, i.e how well you imbed quotes in your work and whether they add to or detract from your essay. But the content of the quote itself cannot be assessed since it's not your work. So if the quote makes a really good argument or explains your point really well unfortunately you're not going to gain any marks you could potentially have got if you'd explained the same thing in your own words and used a short phrase from the quote to back it up.

Additionally, long quotes are distracting for the reader. The examiner may forget the point you were actually trying to make because of the long quote which could result in you getting less marks than you deserve.

When writing essays try to be concise. Don't use 40 words when 8 will do. The same applies to quotes.

Good luck with your EE