Quoting Supremacy: The Good, The Bad & The Ugly About Quoting

(In response to a comment here)

You once said opinion is opinion, but now why do you justify my opinion, saying them childish, this and that? Now you are eating back your words.

It is not about quoting in general here, it is about quoting long articles. However, if THAT is what you're talking about, fine, I'll just follow your flow.

There is a BIG difference between quoting external sources (to support your statement) and quoting your opponent's words to highlight them, only to manipulate them to turn your opponent down. While the former is acceptable for academic discussion, the latter is what makes me think you are eating your words back. Why? Because by doing so, you are like judging other people's words (opinion) by pinpointing at where you think they are wrong or in opposite to what you think or believe, like a hacker taking advantage on loopholes and security weaknesses in computer system. That makes quoting may become somewhat a crime (when you misuse it of course).

If quoting is everything then court trial judges would have approved quote-heavy arguments, and we would have seen quote-heavy arguments in court trials as well, but are there any? If debates mean the clashing opinions then everything must be explained using original words based on your own understanding. Remember, quoting only works if you want to point out at certain part of a long article, where it is impossible to convey your message by just putting a link or reference.

I must say here in academic discussion, we don't have such thing as quoting. Instead, we have what we call 'citation or sources or references'. You've seen how dirty political debates, haven't you? It wouldn't have been that bad if those opposing and arguing politicians are citing statistics and facts rather than resorting to quoting each others words, turning them into somewhat a mechanism to condemn and assault each other. In other words, quoting in that way won't resulting a fruitful debate; it will only turn debates into word fights. Even in writing essays, it won't give us extra marks for quoting. Instead, it is our own, original words that matters the most.