006

The author says that a direct quote "should be the exact words of the speaker." Can you think of any circumstances in which this would not be true?

A circumstance under which a direct quote may not have to be the exact words of the speaker is one in which the speaker is not eloquent or uses bad grammar. For the purpose of uniformity in an article, the writer should use good grammar in the parts of the article that they write themselves and if the speaker uses anything less than good grammar, they should clean it up so that it matches the rest of the article.

When the exact words of the speaker are confusing, excessive, or sound unintellgent, their language should be "cleaned up" by the writer of the article, but the "gist" of what the speaker says should stay the same. A writer should strive to make sure the message the speaker is trying to convey gets across to the reader as the speaker had originally intended, even if that means not using the speaker's exact words if they sound unintelligent and interrupt the flow of the journalistic piece. Also, if the speaker has used coarse language that might offend readers or if the speaker has used jargon that many readers may not understand, it might benefit the writer to rephrase what they have said in a way that the readers might be able to better digest.

If I were to rephrase this rule, I would say that it is important for a direct quote to convey the exact meaning of what a speaker has said. Using the exact words of the speaker in a direct quote would be ideal, but not at the cost of the quality of a piece.