📝 The Quote That Was Not a Quote
📝 The Quote That Was Not a Quote
In a Year 10 practice paper, a student wrote: “The writer quotes that the sea was very rough and the sailors were frightened by the storm.”
There were no quotation marks in the original. No words from the text. What the student called a “quote” was their own summary of the passage phrased to sound like evidence. The examiner cannot award AO1 marks for a student’s own words — only for the writer’s.
This is the paraphrase-as-quote trap. It is the single most common technical error in reading answers, and it caps every response at Level 1.
English Language glossary
- What is the difference between a quotation and a paraphrase?
- <strong>Quotation:</strong> the writer’s actual words, reproduced exactly, inside inverted commas.<br><br><strong>Paraphrase:</strong> the student’s own summary of what the writer said, often placed in inverted commas as if it were a quote — but it is not.<br><br><strong>Why this matters:</strong> AO1 requires textual reference — the writer’s own words. A paraphrase is evidence that you understood the passage (Level 1) but not evidence that you can analyse language. AO2 marks depend on the specific words the writer chose being present on the page.<br><br><em>Tell-tale sign:</em> if removing the inverted commas makes no difference to your sentence, it is probably paraphrase.
A quotation is the writer’s actual words, reproduced exactly, inside inverted commas. It is not a summary of what the writer said. It is not a description of what happens. It is not a restatement of the passage in your own language.
Now try it yourself
Quiz · Question 1 of 10
What is the key difference between a paraphrase and a quotation?
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