1. Don't misquote. Don't change anything in the quotation without using ellipses and brackets to show excerpts and inserts. If the syntax of a sentence you want to quote won't fit into your sentence, quote only the most important phrase.

2. Don't forget that you need a page number for every direct quote.

3. Don't double up on end punctuation; you never need two periods at the end of a sentence, and if you end with a question mark or exclamation mark, you also do not need a period.

4. Don't put quote marks around indented quotations; the indentation shows it's a quotation. If there is dialogue in an indented quote, punctuate it as in the book, using double quotes.

5. Don't start a paragraph out with a quote; a paragraph should begin with your idea, your topic sentence. The quotes you use should be there to support/prove ideas you have about the text. Always introduce the quote first; then quote; then explain/interpret the quotation.

6. Don't just stick a quote in with no introduction. Always introduce the context of the quote so that your reader knows who is speaking.

7. Don't ever jam two quotes together. Each quote should be introduced separately. If two quotes are about the same thing and occur very close to one another on the same page, you can separate them with ellipses. But if they appear on two different pages, you should have two different intros. (The exception to this is when you are quoting a list of words or short phrases culled from many places in the book.)