Core Gramar For Lawyers: Quotations

Terms of Art

a word or group of words with special meaning to a specific audience (such as members of the legal profession) or under specific circumstances (such as when the meaning of a specific statutory term is being considered by a court). When using a term of art in a sentence, the term should be surrounded by quotation marks (at least initially) to alert the reader that it is a word or phrase with special meaning.

If you are inserting a quotation in the middle of a sentence and the quotation originally began with a capital letter

alter the quotation (using brackets around the new lowercase letter) so that the quotation properly flows in your sentence.

If the material you are quoting begins a sentence you have drafted, but was not the beginning of a sentence in the original work

alter the quotation by capitalizing the quoted word that now begins your new sentence and enclosing the beginning capital letter in brackets.

If the material that you are quoting begins with a full sentence

capitalize the first word of the quoted material just as it was capitalized in the original.

Short Quotation

consist of forty-nine or fewer words. Short quotations should be embedded in your text and set off with quotation marks (as opposed to long quotations, which should be set off in block quotation format without additional quotation marks), unless you have a special reason to draw attention to them. Accroding to the ALWD guied to legal citation, a short quotation should be put in block quotation format if the quotation is testimony, verse, poetry or an epigraph.

If the material you are quoting comes from the middle of a sentence and is integrated into the middle of your sentence

do not capitalize the first word of the quotation

When you are quoting only part of a longer quotation and are integrating the quoted words directly into a new sentence that you have drafted,

do not include a comma before the quoted material.

Question marks and exclamation points go

inside quotation marks only if they were originally included in the material being quoted

Direct quotation

occurs when a writer uses the exact words of another person in the writer's own text. Direct quotations must be indicated with quotation marks or block quotation format; in legal writing, they also must be cited properly.

Without exception, include commas and periods inside

quotation marks in legal writing in the U.S.

Semicolons and colons go outisde

the quotation marks