Quotes Vs. Paraphrases in Writing: Does it Make a Difference to Readers?

Abstract

Quotation marks make little difference in how student respondents evaluate story or the person in the story.

How Involvement, Citation Style, and Funding Source Affect the Credibility of University Scientists

“…Turning now to the study in general, the participants may be part of the reason that none of the three hypotheses were supported. College students are widely used in experimental studies, and their use here is supported by previous studies that showed college students to be similar to the general public in their ability to assess source expertise and bias (Slater and Rouner 1996a), balance, and fairness (Weaver et al 1974). But students may have difficulty disentangling their evaluations of the credibility of university scientists as sources in a newspaper article from their attitudes toward university 88 SCIENCE COMMUNICATION NOTE: R 2 = .06 for the water pollution article; R 2 = .11 for the rain forest article.…”

“…Previous work by Gibson and Zillmann (1998) had shown this to be true when participants rated a message for credibility. The current study assumed that the relationship would hold when participants rated a scientist, as Weaver et al (1974) suggested. Contrary to expectation, however, direct quotes did not lead to higher ratings of source credibility.…”

“…Considering the value placed on quotes and their widespread use in reporting, it is surprising that not much research has tested their impact on source credibility. Weaver et al (1974) showed that quotes made no difference in comprehension or evaluation of stories, but the source was seen as more dramatic and emotional if quoted. In 1993, Gibson and Zillmann found that quotes were a strong influence in reader perceptions about the issue addressed in a news report.…”

Embedding, quoting, or paraphrasing? Investigating the effects of political leaders’ tweets in online news articles: The case of Donald Trump

“…The available evidence as to audience perception of article bias when using paraphrasing as opposed to quoting indicates a limited effect, as audiences apparently fail to pick up on the credibility, objectivity, and accuracy aspects which journalists may regard as being related to using direct quotes (Duncan et al, 2019; Gibson and Zillmann, 1998 ; Weaver et al, 1974). At the same time, the extant literature leaves much room for further exploration.…”

“…While research has taken place into the effects of direct quotes on audience perceptions of journalistic quality within traditional news media (Gibson and Zillmann, 1998; Weaver et al, 1974), this evolved format of embedding tweets may have new ramifications in the current hybrid media environment, both for perceptions of quality and readers’ appraisal of the quoted political leaders’ personal characteristics. First, there is wide awareness of the potential spill-overs from tweets into the traditional media’s agenda (Parmelee, 2014; Seethaler and Melischek, 2019).…”