quotations beginning with “that”

When introducing a quotation with the word that, do not use a comma or a colon.

Quotations that follow annunciatory clauses ending in that also require grammatical changes—from first-person to third-person pronouns, possessive adjectives and verbs (e.g. I to he, my to his, suspect to suspects). Note that neither the third-person pronoun nor that is ever enclosed in quotation marks or square brackets.

When changing a verb within the actual quotation, place the changed verb in square brackets to indicate that the form has been adjusted from what appeared in the original passage.

Example

• Original

I want to consider one sort of semantic change, the kind of generalization that has affected literally and hundreds of other words. It has been occurring for a long time, often draining meaning until no echo of the word’s roots remains, and I suspect that it is occurring more rapidly in this age of electronic communication. I want to consider it from a particular point of view—as a usage problem, but also as an aspect of what Edward Sapir, more than seventy years ago, described as “drift.”
—Robert Gorrell, “Language Change, Usage and Drift,” English Today

• Restructured version

Gorrell discusses one sort of semantic change, the kind of generalization that has affected literally and hundreds of other words. This semantic change has been occurring for a long time, he believes, and he suspects that “it is occurring more rapidly in this age of electronic communication.” In this work, he “[considers] it from a particular point of view—as a usage problem, but also as an aspect of…‘drift.’”

Note that if several changes of this kind need to be made within the same quotation, the material should be presented entirely in indirect speech.

For more information, see the following articles:

• quotations: indirect (reported) speech
• quotations: omissions