How to Quote an Interview: Find, Check, Edit and Cite

Mara, a freelance reporter (a made-up example), spent 94 minutes with a city water director. Driving home, one line kept replaying in her head: "We're one bad summer from rationing." It was the perfect kicker. When she found the spot in the recording, the director had said something softer: "We could be one bad summer away from having to talk about rationing."

Same topic, different claim: the first is a warning, the second a maybe. Typed from memory, it would have been a correction.

That's the real work behind how to quote an interview. The quotation marks are easy. Finding the exact words, proving them, trimming them honestly, and attributing them is the job. This guide covers each step, the APA and MLA citation lines, and a quote pull sheet you can copy.

How to quote an interview in six steps

1. Mark the moment live. Note the elapsed time when a strong line lands.
2. Find it in the transcript. Search for the words you remember, then go to the audio.
3. Check it word for word. Replay the line until the transcript matches what you hear.
4. Edit only what your style allows. Usually an honest ellipsis, and little else.
5. Attribute it. Full name and role on first reference, plus how the interview happened when it matters.
6. Cite it if your style needs a citation. APA and MLA each have a set format for interviews.

Find the quote in a long recording

Memory is a great index and a poor source.

Mark times while you talk. During the interview, jot the elapsed time next to a two-word note whenever something quotable lands: "18:40 rationing." A reporter's notebook is fine for this. Those marks turn a 94-minute search into a 30-second one.

Get a searchable transcript. Search it for one distinctive word ("rationing"), not the whole sentence, since your memory of the sentence is what you're checking. If the recording is already on your phone, here's how to transcribe a voice memo, or drop a file into the free audio to text tool.

Ask the transcript when you can't remember the word. ParrotNotes gives every transcript its own AI chat, so you can ask "Where did she talk about summer water supply?" and get pointed to the passage. On Pro, AI semantic search looks across all your recordings, handy when the best line came in the second interview.

Want a searchable transcript on your phone when the interview ends? Download ParrotNotes free and record your next one with it.

Check it word for word against the audio

A transcript is a reading copy. Anything going inside quotation marks gets checked against the recording.

Play the line more than once, listening for the small words that flip meaning: not, never, only, might, could. Then play the 30 seconds before it. Was the source answering your question, or joking? Roy Peter Clark's advice at Poynter is a good test even when you did record: "Imagine that someone has taped the interview, even if you have not."

The full routine, with a log for every check, is in our guide on how to transcribe an interview. If you're unsure what the transcript should look like, see this interview transcription example in three formats.

What you can change in a quote, and what you can't

Journalism and academic writing agree on cutting words, as long as you show it. They part ways on fixing grammar.

The Associated Press puts its rule plainly in its News Values and Principles: "We do not alter quotations, even to correct grammatical errors or word usage." If a quote is flawed, AP paraphrases it faithfully instead. APA takes a different route for academic papers: keep the original wording and, if an error could confuse readers, insert [sic] right after it, per its page on changes to quotations.

AP ellipsis wording: the AP Stylebook entry as quoted by Poynter.

Three rules hold everywhere. Clark puts the first plainly: "Adding language to quotes is more dangerous than taking stuff out." Second, he warns against blending quotes from different interviews "without a signal." Third, an ellipsis promises that nothing you removed changes the meaning.

Consider Theo, a history student (also fictional) quoting a retired mill worker. The worker said: "The union got us the raise, but I'm not saying it saved the mill." Theo trimmed it to: "The union got us the raise ... it saved the mill."

Every word is real; the quote is false. His professor caught it by listening to the audio file. The fix was one honest sentence: the worker credited the union for the raise, "but I'm not saying it saved the mill."

Attribute the quote so readers can judge it

The SPJ Code of Ethics asks reporters to "Identify sources clearly" because "the public is entitled to as much information as possible to judge the reliability and motivations of sources."

• Use "said." It's neutral. "Admitted," "claimed," and "insisted" add a judgment the source didn't make.
• Full name and role on first reference, surname after that.
• Say how you got it when it matters: "said in an email" reads differently from a spoken quote.
• Keep context attached. If the line answered a hypothetical, say so. SPJ also asks journalists to "Provide context" and not to "misrepresent or oversimplify."
• Anonymity is the exception. SPJ reserves it for sources who "may face danger, retribution or other harm" and asks you to explain why it was granted.

How to quote an interview in APA and MLA

Writing a paper rather than a story? Then knowing how to quote an interview includes the citation, and both styles keep it short.

APA (7th edition). An interview you conducted is a personal communication, because readers can't retrieve it. Cite it in the text only, with initials, surname, and an exact date, and leave it out of the reference list:

• Narrative: T. Nguyen (personal communication, February 24, 2020) said...
• Parenthetical: (T. Nguyen, personal communication, February 24, 2020)

There's one exception. If the interviews are part of your own research, APA says quote participants directly and state in the text that the quotations come from participants. No personal communication citation, no reference entry.

MLA (9th edition). The person interviewed is the author, and "Interview" is the title. The MLA Style Center gives this form for an interview you conducted:

Clarke, Allison. Interview. Conducted by Joseph Lee, 5 August 2021.

For a recording only you can access, MLA says you don't need timestamps; if every quote comes from one interview, a single note such as "All quotations from Jennifer Stein are from an interview I conducted on 10 October 2022" works too.

Priya, a graduate student in this example, interviewed 12 high school teachers about grading. Her first draft cited each as "(A. Reyes, personal communication...)". Her advisor flagged it: these were study participants, not outside sources. She quoted them directly and added one sentence saying the quotations came from her interviews.

The quote pull sheet

The transcript guide's log checks that the words are right. The pull sheet records what you published, what you changed, and why. Keep one row per quote in the story's folder; if a source disputes a line months later, this sheet and the audio are your answer.

QUOTE PULL SHEET
Story / paper: [working title]
Interview: [source name, role]   Date: [Month DD, YYYY]
How: [in person / phone / video / email]   On the record: [yes / terms]
Style: [AP / house style / APA / MLA]

Q#  Time        [hh:mm:ss]
    As heard    "[exact words from the audio]"
    As published"[words inside your quotation marks]"
    Edits       [none / ellipsis at ... / brackets around ...]
    Rule        [which style rule allows each edit]
    Meaning     [same as heard? yes / reworded as paraphrase]
    Context     [what question or topic prompted it]
    Attribution [name, role, "said", how obtained]
    Citation    [APA / MLA line, or n/a for news]

Here is Mara's row, filled in (fictional example):

Q1  Time        00:18:42
    As heard    "We could be one bad summer away from having to talk about rationing."
    As published"We could be one bad summer away from having to talk about rationing."
    Edits       none
    Rule        n/a
    Meaning     same; the lead paraphrases it as "raised the possibility of rationing talks"
    Context     answer to "What worries you about next year's supply?"
    Attribution Dana Ortiz, water director, said in an interview at her office
    Citation    n/a (news story)

Mara lost her punchy kicker and gained a quote she can defend.

Try ParrotNotes free to record, transcribe, and search your next interview on your phone. Recording a show with several voices? See our guide to podcast transcription.

Quote what they said, not what you remember

Knowing how to quote an interview comes down to four habits. Mark good lines as they happen. Check every quoted word against the audio. Cut only what your style allows, and only when the meaning survives. Attribute and cite so anyone can trace the words back.

The pull sheet takes a few minutes per quote and saves the awkward call when a source says "I never said that."

Start with your next interview. Download ParrotNotes free, record it, and search the transcript for the line you remember. The recording will tell you what was really said.