Attribution
The act of naming the original speaker or writer of a quote.
Attribution is the practice of naming the person who said or wrote a quotation. It is the basic ethical requirement of quoting: words belong to whoever first put them in that order, and using them without credit is plagiarism or, at minimum, intellectual rudeness.
A complete attribution names the speaker; a strong attribution adds the work, year, and page or section. The stronger the attribution, the more weight the quote carries — and the easier it is for the reader to check.
Online, attribution decays. A quote graphic strips away the source; a screenshot strips away the graphic's caption; a reshare strips away the original poster. By the time the line reaches the average reader, the attribution is often missing, wrong, or invented.
“A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes.”
Keep reading the glossary
Assigning a quote to the wrong person — the most common error in quotation.
A formal reference that lets a reader locate the source of a quote.
The original record of a quote — the book, letter, speech, or recording in which it first appeared.
Reproducing a quote with the wording changed — even if the source is correct.