Quotation Percentage Checker
Paste an essay to see what share of its words sit inside quotation marks. The checker lists every quotation with its length, highlights each one in your text, and flags any that APA or MLA would set as a block quotation. Free, no sign-up, and nothing leaves your browser.
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Paste your text to see how much of it is quoted.
How to Use the Quotation Percentage Checker
- Paste your draft. Leave the reference list in if it is easier — the checker stops at the References, Works Cited, or Bibliography heading, so MLA article titles in quotation marks are not mistaken for quotations.
- Choose the block quotation rule. APA 7 and MLA 9 draw the line in different places, and the notes in the quotation list follow the style you pick.
- Mark your block quotations. Word's indentation disappears when you paste, so type > at the start of each block-quoted paragraph. Consecutive marked paragraphs count as one quotation.
- Read the result. The percentage is quoted words divided by total words. Below it, every quotation is listed in order with its word count and any formatting note.
What the Checker Counts as Quoted
A quotation is anything between a pair of double quotation marks — curly (“ ”), straight, or French guillemets (« »). Straight marks look the same at both ends, so the checker reads the context: a mark after a space or an opening bracket opens a quotation, and the next mark closes it. Single marks inside a double-quoted passage — a quotation within a quotation, or an apostrophe — belong to the outer quotation and are not counted twice.
British writers often use single marks for the outer quotation. Switch on single quotation marks for that text and the checker reads ‘…’ as well — with one caution: a plural possessive (the participants’ answers) looks exactly like a closing single mark, so check the highlighting when a quotation contains one.
Words are counted the way a word processor counts them: any run of characters between spaces that contains a letter or a digit. The percentage is quoted words ÷ total words × 100, and both totals stop at the reference list when that option is on.
When a Quotation Should Be a Block Quotation
| Style | Rule | How the checker tests it |
|---|---|---|
| APA 7 | A quotation of 40 words or more is set as an indented block, without quotation marks. | Counts the words inside the marks and flags 40 or more. |
| MLA 9 | A prose quotation that runs to more than four lines in your paper is set off as a block indented half an inch. | Estimates lines at about 90 characters — one 6.5-inch line of 12-point Times New Roman — and flags anything over four. |
Sources: APA Style, Quotations; MLA Style Center, type size and block quotations. MLA sets verse of more than three lines as a block too; the checker measures prose only.
The two rules disagree more often than you might expect. Choose Try a sample and the checker finds three quotations of 6, 9, and 45 words — 60 of the essay's 137 words, or 43.8% quoted. Under APA the 45-word quotation is flagged: it belongs in an indented block. Under MLA it is not, because its 257 characters fill only about 2.9 typed lines.
Going the other way, a block quotation you marked with > gets a note when it is shorter than the rule requires — APA would run a 30-word quotation into your paragraph in quotation marks, and so would MLA for anything of four lines or fewer.
How Much Quotation Is Too Much?
Neither APA nor MLA sets a maximum. Some instructors and writing centers give a ceiling — figures such as 10% or 15% are common for argumentative essays — but that is a course convention, so the number your instructor gives is the one that counts. Fields differ too: a close reading of a poem quotes its lines by necessity, while APA advises paraphrasing in most cases and quoting only when the exact wording matters.
Treat a high percentage as a prompt rather than a verdict. If quotations are carrying your argument, paraphrase the ones whose wording does not matter, keep the ones you analyze, and make sure each is followed by your own explanation of why it is there.
What Automatic Detection Cannot Tell
- Quotation marks have other jobs. Titles of short works in MLA, scare quotes, and words used as words all count as quotations. The short-phrase option leaves out anything of three words or fewer.
- A missing mark is reported, not guessed. A quotation never runs past the end of its paragraph; an unmatched mark is counted in the warning, and the text after it is not counted as quoted.
- Block quotations need the > marker. Without it, an indented paragraph pasted from Word looks like any other paragraph.
- MLA lines are estimated. The real count depends on your typeface and on where the quotation starts on its first line, so check close calls in your document.
Frequently Asked Questions
- What percentage of an essay can be quotations?
- No citation style sets a limit. Many instructors suggest keeping direct quotation to a small share of an essay — figures around 10% to 15% are common — but the rule that applies to you is the one in your assignment brief or course handbook. If none is given, ask: expectations in literature, history, and the sciences differ widely.
- Do block quotations count toward the percentage?
- Yes. A paragraph you mark with > is counted as quoted in full, because a block quotation is borrowed wording just as a run-in quotation is. Marked paragraphs that follow one another are treated as a single quotation.
- Is the reference list included in the total?
- Not by default. Everything from a References, Works Cited, Reference List, or Bibliography heading onward is left out of both the quoted words and the total — otherwise the quotation marks around MLA article titles would count as quotations. Untick the option to include it.
- When does a quotation need to be a block quotation?
- In APA 7, when it is 40 words or longer. In MLA 9, when a prose quotation would run to more than four lines in your paper, or a verse quotation to more than three. Chicago has its own threshold, so check the manual if you write in that style.
- How are quotations inside quotations handled?
- A quotation within a quotation is part of the outer one. In “she called it ‘a turning point’ in her notes” the checker finds one quotation of nine words, not two.
- Does this check my essay for plagiarism?
- No. It measures the quotation marks in the text you paste. It does not compare your essay with any source, and it cannot tell whether a quotation is accurate or properly cited — that part is still yours to check.
- Is my essay uploaded anywhere?
- No. The analysis runs entirely in your browser; your text is never sent to a server or stored.