So when you do journalistic writing there's a constant tension between two competing interests: smoo

So when you do journalistic writing there's a constant tension between two competing interests: smooth, compelling to read writing and accurately presenting the quotes as given to you by sources.

Quotes are best attained orally because regular people speak much more honestly than they write, but when they speak they ramble and interject in the middle of their own thoughts and generally just give quotes that aren't a little bit quotable.

A great journalist here's what they need in the moment and asks the same question the new way so that they say it a little more succinctly. The rest of us figure it out later when we are looking at our transcript.

To further complicate things: Stylistically, I hate dividing a quote with ellipses [ ... ] in the middle. This kind of thing. "The bread was so stale though ... so finally I decided there was nothing for it but to make a pudding."

I hate it. I don't know why. It's irrational. It just looks like you did a bad job seeing the quote when it was said and reframing the question so your source would say it better. And I mean, that is what I failed to do when I use an ellipsis, so that's why it looks that way. And it hurts me.

So here's a thing I often do. Someone will say two things that go well together, but they might say them at a wildly different time in the conversation. You want to put them together. You want to put them close together. So here's a workaround that I believe to be right and good.

Say I have two wildly separated quotes that I think sit well together. Such as:

"The funny thing about bread pudding is it doesn't look anything like bread."

And:

"Honestly I don't think I would have even known what bread pudding is at all if it hadn't been my grandmother's favorite desert."

Here's what I will do in such a situation. I will arrange these this way, separated by an initial attribution that is assumed to be applied to the subsequent quote, in regular useage.

"The funny thing about bread pudding is it doesn't look anything like bread," the source said. "Honestly I don't think I would have even known what bread pudding is at all if it hadn't been my grandmother's favorite dessert."

But it's not unusual that one of my editors will put the two quotes together and move the attribution to the end, assuming that I just put it where I did because I liked the rhythm. Like so:

"The funny thing about bread pudding is it doesn't look anything like bread. Honestly I don't think I would have even known what bread pudding is at all if it hadn't been my grandmother's favorite dessert," the source said.

This bothers me enormously, because that is to me a different quote. One in which the source said the one thing directly after the other, but I know they did not do so.

Do I think that my reader is sophisticated enough to consider that these quotes might be from two parts of the conversation when it appears my preferred way? No. I don't think they think about it and I don't think it really matters if they do or don't. What I do think is problematic, though, is to reconstruct the quote in such a way that it definitely would be read as if they were said one thing after another, when I know that's not true.

But honestly I have never heard this topic discussed openly in any journalistic circle. I don't know if:

a) I'm overthinking it, b) I'm right and my editors just haven't thought about it or c) I'm wrong to use the attribution to separate two quotes like this without specifically indicating that they were separate statements, such as by putting in something like: "He added," before the second quote.

But I think about this all the time, and I do think it's really important that we represent these small things as accurately as we can. We are already taking an enormous liberating by winnowing down so much what people tell us, we shouldn't misrepresent what's left in even a small way.