Don't quote me on this...

Sometimes, as a journalist, I hate people.

I've had people cuss me out for approaching them and requesting a harmless man-on-the-street interview. I've had sources be on their way to a great quote only to be stopped dead once they catch sight of a pen and pad (or worse yet, a minidisk recorder.) I've had to sit through circuitous, redundant rants, one-word answer interviews and just plain rude people.

So it strikes me as funny, that our textbook emphasizes the logistics of quoting (how to use ellipses, when to paraphrase etc.) when in my experience, you're often lucky to just get people to talk.

This is not to say that the text wasn't pointing out important aspects of quoting.

One thing, that I did find reassuring, however was the section on "accurate" quoting. In particular, the study that Arizona University Professor, Adrienne Leher did that showed 13 out of 98 quotes taken from Arizona newspapers were 100% accurate. (God knows I've done my share of fudging when it comes to exact quoting.) It's just nice to hear I'm not alone.