Blending Quotations



Blending Quotations

Monaghan | |

There are a lot of reasons to use quotations in your writing. Sometimes, someone else has said what you want to say so perfectly that there is no point in using different words. Other times, you are trying to show similarities and differences between your ideas and those of another and you need to show their ideas in their own words. You may need to show that noted experts agree with you. You may need to explain or interpret a particular passage in a book or article and you can’t do it unless the reader has read what you are trying to explain.

In short, quotations serve a purpose and that purpose is never to take up space

|Some do’s and don’ts for quotations |

❑ DON’T use them at the beginning of a paragraph – that space is reserved for your topic sentence.

❑ DON’T use them at the end of a paragraph – your paragraph should end with interpretation or explanation.

❑ DON’T begin them with “This quote says…” or “According to this quote…”

❑ DO vary the ways that you introduce your quotes.

❑ DO use them often, but not as a substitute for your own reasoning.

❑ DO give credit for a quote every single time by citing the author and page number in parentheses after the quote.

**If you paraphrase (you don’t like the sentence, but want to use the idea or fact contained within it) give credit in the same way that you would with a quote. Introduce the author and title of the work and note the page number.

Each time you use a quotation, you should do the following with it:

❑ Introduce-- set up the quotation by giving it a connection to your topic

❑ Annotate --identify the source of the quotation (title, author, page number)

❑ Explain --explain how the quotation supports your reasoning or has influenced your thinking

Some more advanced do’s and don’ts for quotations

The quote is in first-person and I need to change it to third-person: Replace each first person reference (I, me, we, us) with the appropriate pronoun or noun (she or he, they, Annie Dillard, etc.) by putting your replacement in brackets: [replacement word].

Example: Annie Dillard felt that books taught her skills. “[She] was a skilled bombardier. [She] could run a submarine with one hand and evade torpedoes, depth charges, and mines.” (1)

I need only part of the quote: Use the part you want and insert ellipses (…) to show that you have omitted portions of the quote. NOTE: you cannot change the meaning of the quote by doing this. For example, you can’t replace the word “not” with ellipses and completely alter the meaning of a quote.

Example: Annie became discouraged about the possibility of a better future “when… the highest prize was a piece of bread?” in all of the books she had read.

My quote is longer than four typed lines: Single-space long quotes and indent both sides by five spaces. You may put these long quotes in italics for effect, if you’d like to.

Example: Now and over the next few years, the books appeared and we read them. We read The Bridge Over the River Kwai, The Young Lions. In the background sang a chorus of smarmy librarians:

The world of books is a child's

Land of enchantment.

When you open a book and start reading

You enter another world-the world

Of make-believe--where anything can happen.

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