Context Sensitive Quotations

Last updated on 2025-07-16 | Edit this page

Estimated time: 35 minutes

Overview

Questions

How can I semantically markup quotes so they adapt to language and style?
What is the benefit of letting csquotes integrate with biblatex for quoting?
How do I switch between different quotation styles (e.g. English “…” vs. German „…“)?
How can I automatically hyphenate and nest quotations correctly in another language?

Objectives

By the end of this lesson, learners will be able to:

Explain the difference between inline quotes, block quotes, and semantic quoting.
Use \enquote{…} (and its variants) to produce context‑sensitive quotation marks.
Reference a quoted passage with a citation that feeds into the bibliographic list.
Switch quote styles to match locale conventions (e.g. German vs. English).
Configure csquotes to handle nested quotes, foreign‑language quotes, and hyphenation.

Introduction

Quotations play an essential role in scholarly writing, allowing you to bring in authoritative voices or preserve precise wording. But “dumb” straight ASCII quotes ("like this") don’t adapt to language conventions, and block quotes can be cumbersome to format manually.

The csquotes package makes all of this automatic:

It defines semantic commands like \enquote{…}, which insert the right opening/closing marks based on the current language (e.g. “English style,” ‹French guillemets›, or „German quotes“).
It integrates smoothly with biblatex, so you can attach a citation to a quote with \blockquote[prenote][postnote]{…} and have the entry appear in your bibliography.
It handles nested quotations, switching automatically to secondary marks (e.g. single quotes) when you nest quotes.
It can load language-specific hyphenation patterns so that breaking long quoted passages doesn’t lead to poorly shaped lines.

Before we begin, make sure you’ve installed csquotes:

BASH

tlmgr install csquotes

and that your document preamble loads it (ideally after the package biblatex):

LATEX

\usepackage{csquotes}

Various Types of Quotation

Inline Quotes

Instead of typing this by hand:

LATEX

“She said, ‘Hello.’”

you write:

LATEX

\enquote{She said, \enquote*{Hello}.}

\enquote{…} uses the main quote style.
\enquote*{…} (star form) forces the inner quote style, even if not nested.

Here is a full example.

LATEX

According to Charles Hoare, \enquote{Documentation must be regarded
as \enquote*{an integral part} of the process of design and coding.}
(1973, p. 195)

Text or Block Quotes

For longer quotations you can use:

LATEX

\blockquote[see Hoare 1973, p. 195]{%
 Documentation must be regarded as an integral part of the process of design and coding.
 A good programming language will encourage and assist the programmer to write clear,
 self-documenting code, and even perhaps to develop and display a pleasant style of writing.%
}

The optional bracket is a postnote (e.g. source or page number).

It will produce an indented block and automatically insert quotation marks (or omit them, depending on style). There is also the \textquote-command but this is ommitted since \blockquote has the greater flexibility.

Referencing Source of Quote to BibLaTeX-Entry

One of the biggest advantages of using csquotes is its interplay with biblatex as a way of referencing sources. To use this kind of quotes you also need to have the package biblatex loaded in your preamble.

BIBTEX

@InCollection{Hoare1973,
  author    = {Charles Antony Richard Hoare},
  title     = {Hints on programming language design},
  editor    = {C. Bunyan},
  booktitle = {Computer Systems Reliability},
  series    = {State of the Art Report},
  number    = {20},
  pages     = {193--216},
  year      = {1973},
  url       = {http://flint.cs.yale.edu/cs428/documentation/HintsPL.pdf},
  urlyear   = {2018},
  comment   = {Documentation must be regarded as an integral part of the process of design and coding. A good programming language will encourage and assist the programmer to write clear, self-documenting code, and even perhaps to develop and display a pleasant style of writing.}
}

LATEX

\blockcquote[⟨prenote⟩][⟨postnote⟩]{⟨key⟩}[⟨punct⟩]{⟨text⟩}⟨tpunct⟩

⟨prenote⟩: optional text before the citation (e.g. “see”, “cf.”).
⟨postnote⟩: optional locator such as a page number (e.g. “193–216”).
⟨key⟩: the BibLaTeX entry key (e.g. Hoare1973).
⟨punct⟩: punctuation inserted inside the closing quote (e.g. a comma or period).
⟨text⟩: the quoted passage itself.
⟨tpunct⟩: punctuation inserted after the closing quote (e.g. a period or question mark).

Here is an example:

LATEX

\blockcquote[see][195]{Hoare1973}{Documentation must be regarded as an integral part of the process of design and coding. A good programming language will encourage and assist the programmer to write clear, self-documenting code, and even perhaps to develop and display a pleasant style of writing.}

This will produce (with default settings for biblatex):

Documentation must be regarded as an integral part of the process of design and coding. A good programming language will encourage and assist the programmer to write clear, self-documenting code, and even perhaps to develop and display a pleasant style of writing. [see 1, p. 195]

and automatically add the Hoare1973 entry to your bibliography when you run \printbibliography.

Challenge 1: Referencing Sources

Add a new entry to your references.bib for a short article.
Use \textcquote and \blockcquote to insert a two sentence quote with a pre- and postnote pointing to the entry you just created. Do you see a difference when you use \textcquote or \blockcquote?

Output

With default settings, quotes written with \blockcquote will be displayed in the same way as \textcquote. As soon as the text is longer than three complete lines of text, then the whole quote is indented and set as a block.

Foreign Language Quotes

csquotes can detect and adjust for foreign passages if you load polyglossia or babel. For example:

LATEX

\usepackage[ngerman,english]{babel}
\usepackage[autostyle]{csquotes}

% In your document:
\foreignquote{german}{Er ist der Beste.}

This switches to German quotes („…“) only for that passage, then returns to the main language.

You can also nest foreign quotes:

LATEX

\enquote{He said, \foreignquote{french}{Je ne sais quoi}, before leaving.}

…which might render as (setting in your preamble \usepackage[autostyle,french=guillemets]{csquotes}): > “He said, « Je ne sais quoi », before leaving.”

There is also the command \foreignblockcquote that first needs the language as mandatory argument, for a concrete example:

LATEX

\foreignblockcquote{german}[vgl.][195 (eigene Übersetzung)]{Hoare1973}{%
Die Dokumentation muss als integraler Bestandteil des Entwurfs- und Kodierungsprozesses betrachtet werden. Eine gute Programmiersprache wird den Programmierer ermutigen und unterstützen, klaren, selbstdokumentierenden Code zu schreiben und vielleicht sogar einen angenehmen Schreibstil zu entwickeln und zu pflegen.%
}

Auxiliary Commands

When quoting text in a formal way, any changes applied to the quoted material—such as omissions, insertions, or deletions—should be explicitly marked. The csquotes package provides three auxiliary commands for this purpose:

\textelp{} / \textelp{⟨text⟩} / \textelp*{⟨text⟩} Prints an ellipsis to indicate omitted material. With an argument, it also shows inserted text in brackets. The starred form reverses insertion order.
\textins{⟨text⟩} / \textins*{⟨text⟩} Marks added text in square brackets. The starred variant is intended for small modifications (e.g. capitalization).
\textdel{⟨text⟩} Indicates deletion by printing empty brackets; the omitted text itself is not displayed.

LATEX

She said, “To be, or not to be\textelp{} that is the question.”
He corrected it to “To be, or not to be\textelp{ indeed}\textelp*{ indeed}.”
Old form: “colour” → “colou\textdel{r}”
Insersion: “The quick \textins{brown} fox.”

Challenge 2: Auxiliary Commands

Take the sentence: “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.”
Omit the word “brown” using \textelp{} and show the result.
Insert the word “agile” before “fox” using \textins{}.
Delete the “s” in “jumps” using \textdel{}.

Output

Adjust Default Settings

Change the amount of lines you want to have for a block quote:

LATEX

\SetBlockThreshold{0} % number of full ines for blockquote, 0= all quotes are like blockquote

Adjust the appearance of a deleted word.

LATEX

\renewcommand{\mktextdel}[1]{[\textellipsis]}

Define the way of a source is displayed after the blockquote:

LATEX

\renewcommand{\mkcitation}[1]{\footnote{#1}}
\renewcommand{\mkccitation}[1]{\footnote{#1}}

This will put the references in a footnote.

Key Points

Use \enquote{…} for semantic, language-aware inline quotes.
Use \blockquote{…} for automatic block formatting and citation.
Integrate with biblatex inside quotes for full bibliographic support.
Switch quote styles per language with \foreign(c)quote.
Customize nesting, spacing, and thresholds to match publisher or style-guide requirements.