Quoting English B1A

Why Quote? Including outside source material in your own writing is a good way for you to establish your ethos as an author. Providing evidence in the form of outside sources shows that there are credible, reputable experts who also share your opinion. Their findings can lend backing to your own argument.

When to quote? There are multiple ways to incorporate source material into your writing, including quoting, paraphrasing, and summarizing. You should quote, or include direct words from a source in your own paper, when the language is especially memorable or beautiful, and to alter it in any way would detract from its power.

How to Quote Whenever you quote from a source, you should keep in mind three important rules: Introduce Cite Explain The handy acronym ICE can help you remember.

Introducing You should always introduce a quote before you include it in your writing. The very first time you mention a source, you need to give it a complete introduction, including The author’s first and last name The author’s relevant qualifications The full title of the book or article A brief summary of the book or article. Remember to keep this relevant to how you will be using the source in your own writing. This intro. will look similar to the first sentence of a rhetorical précis.

Signal Phrases After your initial introduction of a source, you will use an abbreviated intro. called a signal phrase to introduce subsequent quotes from that source. A signal phrase consists of the author’s last name and an appropriate verb. Jones explains Smith argues Rutherford elaborates Your audience should remember who Smith is from your previous introduction, and therefore won’t need to have it repeated.

Punctuating Introductions When introducing a quote with an independent clause, use a colon Friedman provides a challenging yet optimistic view of the future: “We need to get back to work on our country and on our planet” (25). When introducing a quote with a signal phrase, use a comma Mark Twain once declared, “In the spring I have counted one hundred and thirty-six different kinds of weather within four and twenty hours” (55). When blending a quotation in to your own sentence, no punctuation is needed Virginia Woolf wrote in 1928 that “a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction” (4).

Punctuating Introductions Your signal phrase might come at the end of the quote rather than the beginning. If so, include the comma inside the quotation marks. “Most scientists concede that they don’t really know what ‘intelligence’ is,” Staples argues (293). If your signal phrase is in the middle of an interrupted quote, use commas to set off the signal phrase. “With regard to air travel,” Ambrose notes, “Jefferson was a full century ahead of the curve” 53).

Why introduce It should always be clear to your audience who the words in the quotation marks were written by. Giving credit where credit is due is important in preventing plagiarism. Introducing sources also helps you establish ethos and make your paper easy to follow for your readers.

Abbreviating Quotes If you want to take words out of a quote to make it shorter WITHOUT altering the meaning of the quote, you may do so by adding ellipsis marks. Original Text: “None of these conflicts about self presentation are new to adolescence or to Facebook” (Turkle 600). According to Turkle, “None of these conflicts…are new to adolescence or to Facebook” (600).

Adding to Quotations If you need to for the sake of clarity, you can add material to quotations by including that material in brackets. Turkle explains, “Tethered selves, they [adolescents] try to conjure a future different from the one they see coming by building on a past they never knew” (604).

Citing MLA formatting uses two different citations: in-text and works cited. An in-text citation should be included after every direct quote. In-text citations should include the page number where that quote appears in the source. The period for the end of the sentence should come after the citation. Turkle illustrates that “online communication also offers an opportunity to ignore other people’s feelings” (599).

Citing Exceptions Remember that you should always introduce your quotes. If for some reason, though, the author’s last name is not included in the text of your sentence as part of a signal phrase, then it should also be included in the in-text citation. To our detriment, “we invent ways of being with people that turn them into something close to objects” (Turkle 597). If you have a source without page numbers, use paragraph numbers instead. To our detriment, “we invent ways to being with people that turn them into something close to objects” (Turkle para. 15).

Explaining Source material is included as evidence to support your argument. Rather than letting it “speak for itself,” you should always explain its relevance in terms of your argument. How does it support your thesis? Why did you include it? This means that you should never end a paragraph with a citation—you should always include your explanation of the significance of the source within the context of your paper.

Blocked Quotes Blocked quotes are quotes that take up more than 4 lines of your paper. Punctuate these differently than you would a non-blocked quote. They should be indented with no quotation marks, and the period will go before the citation, rather than after. Botan and Vorvoreanue explain, There has never been accurate documentation of the extent of gender differences in surveillance, but by the middle of the 1990s, estimates of the proportion of surveilled employees that were women ranged from 75% to 85%. (127) Ironically, this gender imbalance in workplace surveillance may be evening out today.

Final Thoughts Direct quotes should make up about 10% of your paper, and absolutely no more than 15%. As such, you should use quotes sparingly. Thus, blocked quotes should be rare. Remember ICE!