Quoting: The Complete How-To Guide

Basics: quote codes

Getting down to business: how to make a quote

Quoting more than one piece of text

Quoting from more than one post

Basics: quote codes (what makes a quote a quote)

To appear as a quote in the quote box, text must appear between a set of codes, one to open the quote and one to close it: [quote]  [/quote]

(N.B. I'm using the blue colour just to make it easier to see. In fact, all the colour I use in this document is purely for highlight purposes. On the screen these codes will all be ordinary black.)

So, to quote this line of text, it would look like:

[quote]So, to quote this line of text, it would look like:[/quote]

You can either type in the [quote] [/quote] codes or you can select the text you want to quote and use the Quote button up on the format menu above the text entry box. (You can also use the hotkey alt+q) 

Now, you might have noticed that sometimes it says: Quote: and sometimes it might give someone's name: Nell.Stark wrote:

To get someone's name included, you have to tell it who wrote the post you're quoting (or it will automatically include it):

[quote="nell.stark"] [/quote]

See? You can convert and ordinary [quote] to a name quote by typing in the extra info: [quote="Baker"]

This is how you can get a little more creative. For example, I could quote a post from AndiM and instead of just having [quote="AndiM"] I could change it to [quote="Our Resident Unicorn Rider"]

When you hit the Quote button on the forum to reply to an existing post, it automatically puts that pair of codes at the beginning and end of the whole post.

Getting down to business: how to make a quote

To quote someone's text, you press the Quote button on the top right corner of their post.

When you do that you will see that the whole of their post will appear in your post window with a pair of quote codes at the beginning and end of the whole post. But it's not a good idea to quote the whole of someone's post, because it will be there on screen for everyone to see anyway. The point of quoting is to select the relevant part that you wish to respond to. Trim away unnecessary text.

Example (1). If my post reads this:

When you reply by using the Quote button, it will do this:

Now, what if you don't want to quote the whole post? Say you want to only to quote the text in red:

All you have to do is delete the text in black (making sure you preserve the opening and closing quote codes). Thus:

What will appear on screen is:

Baker wrote:

As long as you keep those opening and closing quote codes, you can delete anything you like, and whatever you leave will appear onscreen in the quote box.

Quoting more than one piece of text 

Now, let's say you want to quote more than one selection from a post. How do you do that?

Example (2): If you want to reply to the red parts:

When you reply to the post by hitting the Quote button, this is what you will get:

To show the three individual remarks that you wish to quote and comment on, you need to:

(a) delete the unwanted black text

(b) make sure every section of red text is bracketed by quote codes.

Thus:

The quote codes in blue are those that were added automatically. The codes in green are the ones that you will have to type in yourself.

Of course, once you have the phrases trimmed and bracketed by quote codes, you can add your witty ripostes:

So, when you hit Preview or Submit it will look like this:

Baker wrote:

Your dazzling remarks here.

Quote:

Another witty rejoinder.

Quote:

More of your wisdom here.

You can convert the plain Quote: to a Baker wrote: by using [quote="Baker"] instead of plain old [quote]. It's up to you.

Remember: if in doubt, you can use the Preview button onscreen to check what your post will look like. You'll see pretty quickly if something is astray. (It's dead easy to miss a square bracket or a backslash. And just as easy to correct it.)

You can quote as much or as little of a post as you like. (Sparing is good, as it makes it easier to read.) And you can quote as many parts of a post as you like--one, two, three, you name it. All you have to do is use those quote codes to bracket the desired text.

You can also quote material from more than one post and/or poster. All you have to do is copy and paste the text from the different posts into the post reply window and bracket the text with the quote codes. You'll have to remember to manually type in the name of the posters to correctly attribute the quoted material. (And, of course, cutting and pasting just the part you wish to quote can actually be quicker than deleting all the unnecessary text. It's up to you.)

Posts can have lots of codes in them, for things like [i]italics[/i], or [b]bold[/b], or [color=green]changing text colour to green[/color]. You can cheerfully ignore them all. Only the [quote][/quote] codes are important for determining what gets put in the nifty wee quote box. OK?

The only time you might get tangled up is when you have quotes nested within the material you want to quote. Just make sure you have a close quote for every open quote code. (And, stylistically, it's probably better to delete the internal quote, since you're actually replying to the top-level quote, not the one the person you are quoting is quoting.)

If you have any further questions, feel free to ask in the Help! and Admin section on the forum. Or PM me, if you prefer. Happy foruming!