WHEN TO PARAPHASE AND WHEN TO QUOTE.... When should you use a quote and how should you reference the work of others? You use a direct quote ONLY for one of these three reasons... ARTFUL WORDS The text is so wonderfully written that no matter how hard you try to put it in your own words something critical is lost. You cannot paraphrase it. Use the quote and be sure to include the author, publication date and page number.FROM THE EXPERT -The importance is not the words but the fact that a certain person said them. For example, a politician might make a statement that has meaning because of WHO said it. The words might be less then poetic but the reason for the quote is to ties the words to the author. Again you need to indicate the source and if it is cited in an article from another source the correct way to list it is. (Bush, 2004 cited in Steward, 2004, p35). CONCEPTS AS PROPERTY The quote contains a phase or concept that you want to tie to a person. For example "communities of practices" (Lave and Wenger, 1991) But beware of writing in the words of others because you are afraid to interpret a the text. This is a common mistake in graduate student writing. You have a right to make sense of the writing. And with a citation you can paraphrase the results of the study using some of the words that are in the study. Don't be afraid to put it in your own words. Now there are a number of ways to cite the person --Suppose you want to quote Riel for the phrase/idea --"Technology is shared minds made visible"...here are four different ways of doing this.