Integrating Quotations

Goal 1: Introduce the Quotation with a Lead-in Phrase The goal is to splice the quotation onto your own sentence to create greater coherence. To splice means “to join together or unite (ropes) by the interweaving of strands,” thereby bringing two separate things together and making them into a single entity (“splice”). Works Cited: “To Splice a Rope.” Lost Crafts.com. Lost Crafts.com,, n n.d. Web. 3 Oct. 2011. “splice.” Webster’s College Dictionary. 3rd Ed. 2005. Print. Image: “To Splice a Rope.”

How do you introduce quotations? Always use a signal phrase to lead into the quotation. Splice the quotation onto your own words (See Easy Writer 198). Example 1: Splice the sentence onto a verb that describes what the author or article is doing: Malcolm X writes, “I saw that the best thing I could do was get hold of a dictionary—to study, to learn some words” (258). Punctuation Rules: Use a comma after the verb to introduce the quotation.

How do you introduce quotations? Example 2: Splice the quotation onto an independent clause (a clause that could be a full sentence): In his study of multiple CF programs, Gawande discovers that the best results are not achieved by technical skill alone: “more nebulous factors like aggressiveness and diligence and ingenuity can matter enormously” (226). Punctuation rules? Use a colon to show that the quote will explain the clause/sentence.

How do you introduce quotations? Integrate smaller parts of the quotation with your own words to create a seamless sentence: E.g. Martin Luther King Jr. insists that an “unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law,” and he proceeds to argue, based on this premise, that “all segregation statutes are unjust because segregation distorts the soul” (208). Punctuation rules: When the quotations are integrated into the sentence structure, you do not need additional punctuation.

Using brackets You can use brackets to note that you have changed small things in the text. You have an ethical requirement to avoid changing the meaning of the sentence. Alexie’s text shows us that he read obsessively, reading anything that he could pick up and “read[ing] books late into the night, until [he] could barely keep [his] eyes open” (17). Note: Sometimes, this can get overly awkward if you have to replace too many things. Therefore, you may need to just reshape your own sentence

Using a block quote You will need to use a block quote if you cite a prose passage that contains more than four lines of text. See Easy Writer 122 for the correct formatting! In “Learning to Read,” Malcolm X describes how he progressed from reading the dictionary to reading long, complex books: I suppose it was inevitable that as my word-base broadened, I could for the first time pick up a book and read and now being to understand what the book was saying. Anyone who has read a great deal can imagine the new world that opened. . . . Between Mr. Muhammad’s teachings, my correspondence, my visitors . . . and my reading of books, months passed without my even thinking about being imprisoned. In fact, up to then, I never had been so truly free in my life. (259)

Using Ellipses You can use ellipses ( . . . ) to indicate that you have omitted words from the original passage. See Easy Writer 129-130 for more detail. Also, the preceding slide has an example of how to use ellipses.