Text and quotation

A text is a complete unit of speech whose parts are connected in meaning and grammar and which has a topic and a main idea. The main features are wholeness (a single topic), cohesion (links between sentences), completeness and the presence of a main idea. A quotation is a passage taken from another author’s work. In a scientific text the source of a quotation must always be named: author, title, year and page. An idea taken without a source is plagiarism, that is, appropriating someone else’s work. A quotation is given exactly in «…», and the source is given in brackets or in a footnote. In a work of fiction a quotation often appears without its source being named, as an allusion; the reader recognises it on their own.