Punctuation: Quoting & Paraphrasing

The fifth question has arrived:

When I paraphrase my own ideas within the same sentence, can I put the paraphrase within two commas or after a colon? Would be grateful for your advice.

I think first we need to make a distinction between 'to quote' and 'to paraphrase':

'To quote' is to take the exact words of another and place them in your own text.  For example:

"Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."

'To paraphrase' is to take the sense / meaning of another and express it in your own words.  For example:

Shakespeare's Macbeth referred to life as a shadow that walked.


When quoting from another source, for long quotations you use a pair of double quotation marks.  For example:

In the words of Macbeth, "Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."

You'll also notice that I use a comma before I start the quotation.  This reflects the way you would say the sentence.  Typically, people pause before that use a quote in spoken English.  The comma is simply reflecting that fact.

For single word or short quotations, for example:

Shakespeare's Macbeth referred to life as 'a walking shadow'.

This short quotation example is also an example of paraphrasing.  You'll notice that I do NOT use quotation marks until the direct short quotation.  In other words when paraphrasing another source, you do not need to use quotation marks.  For example:

Shakespeare's Macbeth referred to life as a shadow that walked.


In your question, you ask about paraphrasing yourself.  In my opinion, you do not need to use any form of special punctuation to make reference to your own statements.  I would, instead, use words to indicate the nature of the self-reference.  For example:

As I have already said earlier in this article....

As I said in the first paragraph / on the first page...

As I wrote in my previous article / letter....

As I indicated in my letter dated 10 / 11 / 09....


I hope that helps to answer your question.

For further reading, you might like to visit some of these sites:

The Free dictionary definitions of 'to quote' and 'to paraphrase'

For more information regarding the difference between quoting & paraphrasing, check out this useful article.

For more information regarding the use of quotations marks, check out this article and this one.