Changing the case of letters in quotations

[lavendersparkle]

I really should have learnt this but I'm still not quite sure. What do you do when you want to change the case of the letter which begins a quotation in a paper, either because the quotation originally started a sentence but you want to insert it into the middle of a sentence or vice versa? As I see it my options are:
a) leave the quotation as is even though it makes my sentence grammatically incorrect.
b) just change the case so that my sentence is grammatically correct.
c) change the case but do something involving brackets to indicate that I've done this.

If it helps, I'm trying to write this paper in Harvard System of citations.

Comments

[emperor]

You could square-bracket the case-changed letter?

[woodpijn.livejournal.com]

Yes, this. I've seen it done that way in lots of academic and other contexts.

Likewise if you need to change the inflection of a word to make it make grammatical sense in your quoted context, like We were "deck[ing] the halls". (The difficulty is when you need to remove an inflection and replace it with nothing, like decking -> deck, and then there's nothing to square-bracket.)

[roz-mcclure.livejournal.com]

I'd use ellipses in that case, I think.

[woodpijn.livejournal.com]

Yes, that makes sense.

[naath.livejournal.com]

That's what I'd do.

[roz-mcclure.livejournal.com]

I am not sure what the academic system says, but as a Professional Sub-Editor I would cap it up with abandon.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

You probably have considered seeing if it's easy to reword it to avoid the issue, but I mention that as a good option because I was always too stubborn to do so, even though it's often the best. Otherwise, any of the other options are fairly normal, but I don't know which is recommended.

[amphibian23.livejournal.com]

I vote brackets