Language mistakes in quotes

When quoting text verbatim, should you preserve language mistakes contained within the quoted material or correct them? 

Quotation marks are used to reproduce text exactly as it originally appeared. However, if that original text has grammatical errors, misspellings or other language mistakes within it, the convention is to insert the word “[sic]” in italics immediately after the mistake in the quoted text. 

This lets the reader know that the mistake was present in the source being quoted, and was not introduced by the person quoting it.

Example

• “I been having really bad stomach pains and been vomitting [sic] every morning for the last week.”

By inserting [sic] after “vomitting”, the physician indicates that the misspelling was present in the patient’s original verbatim statement, rather than being a mistranscription. The [sic] notation allows the quote to be reproduced accurately while drawing attention to the fact that “vomitting” contained an obvious spelling error in the source material.

Using [sic] maintains fidelity to the original quote while signaling to readers that the language mistake was not introduced by the author doing the quoting. It’s a convention for precisely reproducing quoted text, errors and all.

In the context of quote formatting, the text states that “rashon” should be spelled “rash on.” It acknowledges that correcting such minor spelling mistakes and typographical errors is the recommended approach according to APA Style guidelines for quoting sources.

However, the passage notes that other renowned style guides like The Chicago Manual of Style consider it acceptable to fix those kinds of trivial spelling and typing mistakes in quoted text. The rationale is that silently correcting inconsequential errors provides a smoother reading experience instead of disrupting the flow with notation like [sic].

Example

• “The rashon my arm feels like it’s burning and itchs real bad.” [sic]

In this quote, leaving the nonstandard words “rashon” (for “rash on”) and “itchs” maintains authenticity to how the patient actually expressed themselves. The mistakes reveal the patient’s vocabulary level and spoken language pattern, which could be relevant context for the physician.

However, if the same quote had a minor typo like “The rash on my am feels like it’s burning and itches real bad”, the doctor could opt to silently fix “am” to “arm” since it’s an inconsequential error.