I am currently writing an academic text and need to directly quote/cite text from a paper. What is best practice when I need to add a remark/note to the quote?
For instance, I would do it like this: The authors claim that "we do the best work ever in the area of CS (note: Computer Science)".
So in the above case the actually quoted text is "we do the best work ever in the area of CS", however, I want to add a note which explains the abbreviation "CS".
How should this be done?
Related questions:
Square brackets are commonly used to indicate insertions in quoted text. You wouldn't need to use the word "note", so just "... CS [computer science]".
thepunctuationguide.com sums it up quite nicely -- their first example is in many ways equivalent to your case.
You say,
For instance, I would do it like this: The authors claim that "we do the best work ever in the area of CS (note: Computer Science)".
It's simple. Either quote it in direct speech or convert it to indirect. The above is a hotch-potch. It should be:
The authors claim that they do their best work ever in the area of CS. [Indirect speech]
or
The authors claim, "we do the best work ever in the area of CS (note: Computer Science)."
[Direct speech]
