"Too many quotations" is one of the commonest comments on an undergraduate essay, and one of the least explained. It means the marker kept reading other writers' words where they wanted yours. The fix is not to delete your evidence but to change its form.
This guide is published by EdCitation. On 27 September 2026 we read nine university writing centre and library guides from the UK, the US, Canada and Australia, APA Style's page on quotations, and the Citation Project's data on how 174 undergraduates used their sources. Every figure below is one those sources state; the example brief, passage and paragraphs are ours.
EdCitation never writes, paraphrases or rewrites any part of a paper, so the rewriting is yours. It does the steps around it: the free Check your paper reads your brief, including any limit on quotation, into a checklist, and Cite a source builds the reference for every source you keep, from the publisher's record.
Why does my feedback say too many quotations?
Because the quotations are standing in for your analysis. The University of York (2026) lists "Avoid over-reliance on direct quotations" among the common feedback comments in its academic writing guide, and explains that heavy quoting hides your own analysis and can turn a paper into a summary of other people's work.
Plotnick (n.d.), for the University of Toronto, warns that too much quotation will "crowd out your own ideas". The University of Portland Writing Center (n.d.) is blunter: a long quotation that could have been summarised suggests the writer did not understand the material, could not be bothered to summarise it, or was padding the word count. None of that may be true of you, but a marker has only the page. Newcastle University (n.d.) gives the positive case: explaining a source in your own words shows your grasp of it far better than a quotation, and keeps your voice the most prominent in your own assignment.
What the research found in student papers
The Citation Project coded 1,911 citations in research papers by 174 students at 16 US colleges and universities (Jamieson & Howard, 2014). Quotation was the commonest use of a source, at 41.5% of citations, ahead of paraphrase (31.9%) and patchwriting (16.0%); summary was 6.3%. Nearly every paper, 91.4%, quoted at least once, while only 40.8% summarised a source even once, and 4.3% of citations copied words without marking them as a quotation. That is the shape of a paper a marker calls over-quoted: many borrowed sentences, little sign of a whole source digested.
How many quotes should be in an essay?
As many as your brief allows, and usually fewer than you have. Where a guide gives a number, 10% of the words is the commonest, but it is a rule of thumb from particular universities, not a rule of any style, and APA Style gives no figure.
| Guide | What it says | Figure |
|---|---|---|
| Walden University Writing Center (McIndoo, 2014) | No more than 10% of a study's words quoted, and "even that rate might raise eyebrows"; the same for course papers | 10% |
| Torrens University Library (2024) | The "general rule" for an assignment | 10% |
| University of Newcastle Library, Australia (2026) | No more than 10% of an essay or report | 10% |
| University of Portland Writing Center (n.d.) | Beyond a quarter, you may not be synthesising your sources | 25%, as a warning sign |
| University of North Carolina Writing Center (n.d.) | "As few words as possible" | None |
| American Psychological Association (2022) | Instructors, programmes and publishers may set limits; ask if unsure | None |
| Your assignment brief | Whatever it says | Overrides all of these |
The two figures are different claims: 10% is a ceiling, and Portland's quarter is where it sees a problem. On a 2,000-word essay, a 10% ceiling allows 200 quoted words in all. Where the brief and your tutor say nothing, write to the 10% ceiling: three guides here state it, and none calls more acceptable.
Does the subject change the answer?
Yes, though no guide we read puts a number on it. Plotnick notes that scientific writing, and social sciences built on controlled studies, rely on summary rather than quotation. The UNC handout counts analysing how someone uses language as a reason to quote, which is why a literature essay quotes its set text more than a psychology essay quotes a study. We found no separate figure for literature essays, so we give none.
When is a quotation the right choice?
When the exact words are the evidence. APA's three cases are in paraphrase, quote or summarise. Toronto adds wording that is memorable, an authority you are enlisting, a passage you will analyse, and a position you will argue with in detail. Newcastle University adds a definition you will work to, and words you are about to critique, where the reader needs the original to trust you. A discipline's technical terms, it notes, need no quotation marks.
| Keep the quotation when | Paraphrase or summarise when |
|---|---|
| You will analyse its wording | You only need its information |
| It is a definition you will use throughout | It is a finding, fact or figure |
| You are arguing with its exact claim | You agree with it or need it as background |
| The phrasing is short and hard to better | The passage is long or its point general |
Our own test, in one question: if the quotation became a paraphrase, would your next sentence lose something it needs? If not, paraphrase it.
How do I reduce quotes in an essay?
Turn each unnecessary quotation into a paraphrase or summary, starting from what it does in your paragraph. Writing a paraphrase from scratch, and the trap of patchwriting, are in the paraphrasing guide; these steps are for a quotation already in a draft.
- Name the job. Note the one point your paragraph needs from the quotation.
- Choose the form. In Toronto's terms, a paraphrase keeps roughly the original's detail and a summary only its essential points.
- Write it into your own sentence, serving your claim, with the source out of view.
- Keep a fragment only if the words earn it. UNC suggests quoting short fragments rather than whole sentences; the page number stays.
- Cite it. A paraphrase or summary still needs the author and year.
One quotation, three ways
The passage is invented for this example; "Author B" is a placeholder, not a real writer.
"A newly planted street tree needs regular watering through its first three summers; without it, a large share of new plantings die before they ever cast useful shade." (Author B, 2023, p. 8)
Paraphrase. Young street trees survive only if watered for their first three summers, so a scheme that stops at planting loses many before they are big enough to shade anything (Author B, 2023).
Summary. New street trees need three summers of watering to survive (Author B, 2023).
A fragment, kept. Author B (2023) warns that unwatered young trees often die "before they ever cast useful shade" (p. 8).
How do I introduce and explain a quotation with signal phrases?
Tell the reader whose words are coming and how to take them, then say what they show. The UNC handout gives every quotation four jobs around it: context, attribution, why it matters, and a citation.
Before the quotation
A signal phrase names the source and, through its verb, its stance. Portland asks for a precise verb, such as explains, argues or maintains, rather than "says" every time. On tense, Morley (n.d.), in Manchester's Academic Phrasebank, notes that writers tend to use the present perfect for the literature in general, the simple past for a specific study, and the present for an idea that still holds.
| Your purpose | A signal phrase (our examples) |
|---|---|
| Report a finding | Author A (2022) found that… |
| Borrow a definition | Author A (2022) defines canopy cover as… |
| Set up disagreement | Author C (2021) insists that…, but… |
| Concede a point | Author B (2023) rightly notes that… |
Choosing verbs by how two sources relate is covered in how to integrate sources.
After the quotation
Explain it at once. Plotnick's advice is never to let a quotation do your work for you, and Newcastle University adds that the longer the quotation, the more you should say about it. McIndoo (2014) draws the structural rule: a quotation should neither start nor end a paragraph. Portland calls a quotation dropped in with no signal phrase or explanation "injected".
A before-and-after: one over-quoted paragraph, fixed
Both paragraphs are ours, and Authors A, B and C are placeholders for invented sources.
Before.
Many cities now plan to plant more street trees. According to Author A (2022), "tree-planting programmes tend to reach the neighbourhoods that already have the most trees, because residents there are more likely to request them" (p. 31). Author B (2023) states that "a newly planted street tree needs regular watering through its first three summers" (p. 8). "Planting is the cheap part; keeping a young tree alive is where most of the money goes" (Author C, 2021, p. 112). This shows that planting trees is not simple.
After.
A bigger planting budget will not cool the streets that need it most unless the city changes how trees are allocated and paid for. Schemes that plant on request tend to favour neighbourhoods that already have good cover, because those residents ask most often (Author A, 2022). The cost also arrives later than a planting budget assumes: young trees need watering for three summers to survive (Author B, 2023), and Author C (2021) is right that planting "is the cheap part" (p. 112). A scheme that allocated trees by heat risk rather than by request, and budgeted for three years of care, would answer both problems.
What changed: quoted words fell from 52 of 88 to 4 of 106, from more than half the paragraph to about 4%. It now opens with the writer's claim, every source serves that claim, the one quotation kept is a short phrase with its meaning drawn out, and the vague last line became a conclusion.
How do I check a draft for over-quotation?
Count, then judge each quotation against the brief.
- Find the brief's rule. Paste the brief into EdCitation's Check your paper; every sentence about quotation is listed with the rest of the instructions. If none is written, ask: APA says limits are your instructor's to set.
- Count the quoted words. Select each quotation, note the word count your word processor shows for the selection, total them and divide by the essay's length.
- Start with the clusters, paragraphs with two quotations and little between.
- Test each quotation against the table above: keep, cut to a fragment, paraphrase or summarise.
- Check the frame: a signal phrase before, your explanation after, and no paragraph opening or closing on someone else's words.
- Cite what remains, each quotation with its page number and each source built in Cite a source.
- Look for lost quotation marks, the Citation Project's 4.3%. Check plagiarism, in Pro, marks each passage that matches published or web text, with its source.
What does EdCitation do for an essay with too many quotations?
Every step except the one that must be yours. EdCitation is the right tool for the work around the rewriting because it reads and looks things up and never writes: a tool that paraphrased your quotations would hand you sentences that are not yours, the very problem York's feedback comment names.
What Check your paper read from our brief
We wrote a short brief of our own for an essay on street trees and city heat, including the sentence "Quote directly no more than three times in the whole essay, and keep each quotation under 40 words." Pasted into Check your paper, free with no account, it returned "9 rules your paper can be checked against, each with the sentence it was read from":
| What it asks | Asked for |
|---|---|
| Font; font size; line spacing; margins | Times New Roman; 12 pt; 2 ×; 1 in |
| Word count | 1,500 to 1,800 words |
| Sources; source dates | At least 6 sources; 2015 or later |
| Citation style; reference list | APA 7; Required |
The quotation rules were not among them. All three sentences on quotation were set aside under "What it asks you to do, which no rule can test": "Quote directly no more than three times in the whole essay, and keep each quotation under 40 words.", "Do not use block quotations." and "Put every other source into your own words by paraphrase or summary, and explain each quotation you use in a sentence of your own." So the checklist names the limit but does not count against it; that is step 2 above, by hand. With Max ($24 a month), Theoretics QA goes further and judges the paper itself against the assignment's own instructions, with quotations from the paper and nothing rewritten.
Cite a source for the sources you keep
A quotation turned into a paraphrase still needs its reference. Run on two real DOIs that meet our brief's 2015 rule, Cite a source returned these APA 7 entries from Crossref's record, each screened for retraction with no notice found:
Ziter, C. D., Pedersen, E. J., Kucharik, C. J., & Turner, M. G. (2019). Scale-dependent interactions between tree canopy cover and impervious surfaces reduce daytime urban heat during summer. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 116(15), 7575–7580. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1817561116
Schwaab, J., Meier, R., Mussetti, G., Seneviratne, S., Bürgi, C., & Davin, E. L. (2021). The role of urban trees in reducing land surface temperatures in European cities. Nature Communications, 12(1), Article 6763. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-26768-w
It gave the in-text forms too, (Ziter et al., 2019) and (Schwaab et al., 2021), and each source in MLA 9, Chicago 18 author-date, Harvard, IEEE and Vancouver.
Pro and Max
Mechanics QA, a Pro tool ($8 a month), checks the finished file against the APA 7 student paper: formatting, comments left in, citations matched to the list, numbers and language. It is not a quotation counter. Check plagiarism runs on credits, 240 a month with Pro, and shows the cost before it runs. The plans are on the pricing page. None of these tools grades an essay.
Quick questions
How many quotes should be in an essay?
As many as the brief allows. With no limit set, the commonest figure in the guides we read is no more than 10% of the words, from Walden, Torrens and the University of Newcastle in Australia.
Is 10% quotation too much?
It is a ceiling, not a target. Walden adds that even 10% might raise eyebrows, so aim below it unless your subject analyses texts closely.
What does "over-reliance on quotations" mean in feedback?
It means your sources' words carry more of the paper than your own analysis. York's library suggests paraphrasing, summarising and quoting sparingly.
Can EdCitation paraphrase my quotations for me?
No. EdCitation never writes, paraphrases or rewrites any part of a paper. Its free Check your paper reads the brief's quotation rule into your checklist, and Cite a source builds the references.
Should a paragraph end with a quotation?
No. Walden's writing centre says a quotation should neither start nor end a paragraph, and Toronto advises against ending one on a quotation.
References
- American Psychological Association. (2022). Quotations. APA Style. https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/citations/quotations
- Jamieson, S., & Howard, R. M. (2014). Writing from sources: Information selection, use, and citation in undergraduate research papers from sixteen US colleges and universities [Data sheet]. The Citation Project. http://www.citationproject.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/CitationProject-Writing_From_Sources-Data-2014.pdf
- McIndoo, T. (2014, April 8). Using quotations, part II. Walden University Writing Center blog. https://waldenwritingcenter.blogspot.com/2014/04/using-quotations-part-ii.html
- Morley, J. (n.d.). Referring to sources. Academic Phrasebank, University of Manchester. https://www.phrasebank.manchester.ac.uk/referring-to-sources/
- Newcastle University. (n.d.). Quote or paraphrase? Academic Skills Kit. https://www.ncl.ac.uk/academic-skills-kit/good-academic-practice/plagiarism/quote-or-paraphrase/
- Plotnick, J. (n.d.). Using quotations. Writing Advice, University of Toronto. https://advice.writing.utoronto.ca/using-sources/quotations/
- Torrens University Library. (2024, April 30). How much direct quoting is acceptable in my assignment? https://faq.torrens.edu.au/academicskills/faq/269261
- University of Newcastle Library. (2026, June 23). Rules about quoting. Common feedback comments and what they mean. https://libguides.newcastle.edu.au/foundation-studies/feedback/quoting
- University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Writing Center. (n.d.). Quotations. https://writingcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/quotations/
- University of Portland Writing Center. (n.d.). Building quotations into your writing. https://ww1.up.edu/learningcommons/tutoring-services/writing-center/resources/building-quotations-into-your-writing.html
- University of York Library. (2026, September 2). Feedback on referencing and research. Academic writing: A practical guide. https://subjectguides.york.ac.uk/academic-writing/feedback-referencing-research