Best way to notate an inexact quote in an academic paper?

Use [] around the pieces of the quotation you have changed and then cite it as normal. Example: He stated, “You are [the only] person who knows” (Person 3).

I’ve seen that in news articles – particularly when filling in a full name if someone use only a first name, acronym, etc. But can it be used properly when including substitute words? I don’t want to indicate that I had some reason to alter what he said – I just simply don’t know what word he used and don’t want to misquote. That is your example above, though—where did you find that? Also, should I indicate somewhere (a footnote?) why it’s like that?

It can be used in either case. I often do this when I am using a quote that doesn’t fit the tense I am using – so I have to change the word, or when using a quote from an interview where I may have written in short hand and don’t necessarily remember the exact word. You could note it in a footnote to cover all bases, but I don’t think it is completely necessary. Most readers know that the word(s) in the [] may not be exact to the quotation.

[yup]

You could also make it an indirect quotation, without quotation marks:

He said that the most important thing you can do to ensure the continuation of this art form is to think about your estate plans.

That way you are not claiming to be presenting a direct quote but are handling it as you would treat any paraphrase. You can still attribute it or footnote it.

dlm812 is right: you use brackets for inexact quoting, it’s called A Cut-and-Paste quotation, used when you want to insert anything you want to say into a quote.

This is the style we see most often when something needs to be changed or added in order for the quote to make sense. e.g they said “he” in reference to someone they’d already been talking about or when they used a different tense than the one that makes the most sense in context. I think it’s perfectly fine here. Are we talking academic paper for publication or for a course? If it’s a pub, then your journal of choice might have its own rules on this.

If you’re sure the words had the same meaning as those you substituted, definitely bracket. But it might be worth a phone call to confirm that’s what this person meant to say—if s/he is available. “Think about” is a little vague of an action to take. If you present your interviewee with this, s/he may give you a stronger quote in clarification.

Also, I wanted to point out the typo, in case this was copied directly from your document:

The most important thing you can to is (think about) your estate plans, to ensure the (continuation) of this art form.

Thanks so much for the thoughts! (and catching that typo!)

Because it was a talk, not an interview, and not someone I can contact directly, I’m going with the bracketing. We’ll see how that flies!