Poetry, two plots for analysis within 24 hours

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Using Quotations:

A. How do I set up and follow up a quotation?

1. A quotation must never stand alone. It must always be incorporated into your own sentence.

Once you have carefully selected the quotations that you want to use, your next job is to weave

those quotations into your text. The words that precede and follow a quotation are just as

important as the quotation itself. You must also always provide a Works Cited entry for your

sources. Below are guidelines for setting up and integrating quotations. Review the guidelines on

the OWL for more specific and extensive help.

In illustrating these guidelines, we will use Franklin Roosevelt's famous quotation: "The only

thing we have to fear is fear itself.” This quotation is taken from a printed compilation of his

famous speeches. Here is how the Works Cited citation will look:

Roosevelt, Franklin D. “Inaugural Address, March 4, 1933.” The Public Papers of Franklin D.

Roosevelt, Volume Two: The Year of Crisis, 1933. Ed. Samuel Rosenman. New York:

Random House.1938. 11–16. Print.

Always produce a Works Cited entry. In order to make sure that you provide an entry for every

source, you should produce a citation as soon as you quote a source.

2. Provide a context for each quotation.

Do not rely on quotations to tell your story for you. It is your responsibility to provide your

reader with a context for the quotation. The context should set the basic scene for when, possibly

where, and under what circumstances the quotation was spoken or written. So, in providing a

context for our above example, you might write:

When Franklin Roosevelt gave his inaugural speech on March 4, 1933, he addressed a nation weakened and demoralized by economic depression.

Attribute each quotation to its source.

Even if you place an internal citation after a quotation, you must still attribute the quotation

within the text. What is attribution? It is telling your reader who is speaking. A good rule: Try

reading your text aloud. Could your reader determine without looking at your paper who said the

quoted text? If not, your paper probably contains "hanging quotations," which leave your reader

hanging because they lack attribution.

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Roosevelt began his speech by affirming that the nation needed to be courageous. He exclaimed, “[L]et me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself” (Roosevelt, Public Papers 11).

3. Integrate quotations into your own sentence.

When you are quoting a full sentence, always use a short phrase to introduce it. Use the list

below for help. Avoid the attribution/integration rut! There are many ways to attribute and

integrate quotations besides the common "he/she said" construction. Here are a few alternative

verbs:

Add Remarked Exclaim

Announce Replied State

Comment Responded Estimate

Write Retorted Predict

Argue Opined Propose

Declare Criticized Proclaim

Note Complains

Observe Questions

(Make sure to conjugate these verbs correctly. If you are unfamiliar with the meanings of any of

these words, consult a dictionary before using them.)

4. Explain the significance of the quotation.

Once you have inserted your quotation, along with its context and attribution, do not let the

quotation speak for itself. Your reader still needs your assessment of why the quotation holds

significance for your paper. Using our Roosevelt example, if you were writing a paper on the

first one-hundred days of FDR's administration, you might follow the quotation by linking it to

that topic:

With that message of hope and confidence, the new president set the stage for his next one-hundred days in office and helped restore the faith of the American people in their government.

5. Provide a citation for the quotation.

All quotations, just like all paraphrases, require a formal citation. Place the parenthetical

reference after—not within—the closing quotation mark. Skip a space between the quotation

mark and the parenthetical citation. For this citation, the author refers to the specific book source,

Public Papers, because she is using several sources written by FDR.

Roosevelt declared, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself" (Public Papers 11).

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B. How should I quote?

Quote as few words as possible. Remember, your paper should primarily contain your own

words, so quote only the most pithy and memorable parts of sources. Here are three guidelines

for selecting quoted material judiciously.

1. When possible, excerpt fragments.

Sometimes, you should quote short fragments, rather than whole sentences. Suppose you

interviewed Jane Doe about her reaction to John F. Kennedy's assassination. She commented:

"I couldn't believe it. It was just unreal and so sad. It was just unbelievable. I had never experienced such denial. I don't know why I felt so strongly. Perhaps it was because JFK was more to me than a president. He represented the hopes of young people everywhere."

You could quote all of Jane's comments, but her first three sentences are fairly redundant. You

might instead want to quote Jane when she arrives at the ultimate reason for her strong emotions.

Note that no citation is necessary since you will have a citation with her name below, and you

are naming her in the sentence:

Jane Doe grappled with grief and disbelief. To her, JFK was not just a national figurehead but someone who "represented the hopes of young people everywhere."

2. Excerpt those fragments carefully!

Quoting the words of others carries a big responsibility. Misquoting misrepresents the ideas of

others. Here is a classic example of a misquote:

John Adams has often been quoted as having said: "This would be the best of all possible worlds if there were no religion in it" (284).

John Adams did write the above words, but, if you see those words in context, the meaning

changes entirely. Here is the rest of the quotation:

Twenty times, in the course of my late reading, have I been on the point of breaking out, 'this would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it!!!!' But in this exclamation, I should have been as fanatical as Bryant or Cleverly. Without religion, this world would be something not fit to be mentioned in public company—I mean hell.

As you can see from this example, context matters.

This example is from Paul F. Boller, Jr. and John George, They Never Said It: A Book of Fake

Quotes, Misquotes, and Misleading Attributions (Oxford University Press, 1989).

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3. Use block quotations sparingly.

There may be times when you need to quote long passages. However, you should use block

quotations only when you fear that omitting any words will destroy the integrity of the passage

or when you are closely analyzing the language of the passage. If that passage exceeds four lines

(some sources say five), then set it off as a block quotation.

Here are a few general tips for setting off your block quotation:

1. Set up a block quotation with your own words followed by a colon. 2. Indent. When setting up a block quotation, indent the entire paragraph once from

the left-hand margin. (Tip—Tab the first line over, then use Ctrl T to produce a

hanging indent. Use Ctrl-Alt-T to undo it.)

3. Double space (or single space) within the block quotation, depending on the style guidelines of your discipline (MLA, CSE, APA, Chicago, etc.). MLA block

quotations are double-spaced.

4. Do not use quotation marks at the beginning or end of the block quotation—the indentation stands in for the quotation marks.

5. Place parenthetical citation according to your style guide (usually after the period following the last sentence of the quote).

6. Follow up a block quotation with your own words.

Using the above example from John Adams, here is how you might include a block quotation:

After reading several doctrinally rigid tracts, John Adams recalled the zealous ranting of

Joseph Cleverly, his former teacher, and Lemuel Bryant, his minister. He expressed his

ambivalence toward religion in an 1817 letter to Thomas Jefferson:

Twenty times, in the course of my late reading, have I been on the point of

breaking out, 'this would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no

religion in it!!!!' But in this exclamation, I should have been as fanatical as Bryant

or Cleverly. Without religion, this world would be something not fit to be

mentioned in public company—I mean hell. (284)

Adams clearly appreciated religion, even if he often questioned its promotion. His letter

to Jefferson evidences how passionately he felt about religion. The most obvious

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example of his fervor is his use of three exclamation marks. But we also see his

emotion in his strong wording. He claims to be “breaking out,” and he calls his religious

contemporaries “fanatical.” Moreover, his use of what could be considered an expletive,

“hell,” evidences that he was willing to resort to very strong language to make his point.

Adams perhaps most shows his fervor by stating that he would write the word here but

not use the word in public, showing that he resorted to its use for emphasis.

As a general rule, for every quotation, you must provide at least three times as much analysis. In

other words, you must provide three times as much of your own words for every word of the

quotation you bring into your paper. You should almost never end a paragraph with a quotation.

You must always analyze and integrate your quotations.

C. How do I combine quotation marks with other punctuation marks?

It can be confusing when you start combining quotation marks with other punctuation marks.

You should consult a style manual for complicated situations, but the following two rules apply

to most cases:

1. When not immediately followed by a parenthetical citation, keep periods and commas within quotation marks:

According to Professor Jones, Lincoln "feared the spread of slavery," but many of his aides advised him to "watch and wait" (Jones 143).

In the above example, the comma was enclosed in the quotation marks but not the period.

Parenthetical citations always go before the last period of the sentence.

- Place all other punctuation marks (colons, semicolons, exclamation marks, question marks) outside the quotation marks, except when they are part of the original

quotation.

Take a look at the following examples:

According to the Declaration of Independence, early Americans demanded three main rights: “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” (Jefferson 1).

The coach yelled, "Run!"

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In the first example, the author placed the colon outside the quotation marks because it belongs

to her sentence, not to the quotation. The original phrasing in the Declaration of Independence

does not include a colon. In the second example, the exclamation mark remains within the

quotation mark because it is indicating the excited tone in which the coach yelled the command.

Thus, the exclamation mark is considered to be part of the original quotation.

2. How do I indicate quotations within quotations and indirect sources?

If you are quoting a passage that contains a quotation, then use single quotation marks for the

internal quotation. Quite rarely, you quote a passage that has a quotation within a quotation. In

that rare instance, you would use double quotation marks for the second internal quotation.

Here's an example of a quotation within a quotation.

In "The Emperor's New Clothes," Hans Christian Andersen wrote, "'But it is like the Emperor has nothing on at all!' cried a little child" (qtd. in Rowland 8).

Notice that the first quotation marks are followed by a single quotation mark “‘ and that all three quotation marks face the same direction. In order to make the quotation marks all face the same direction, you will have to skip a space between the double and single quotation marks, and then go back and delete the space. “ ‘ “‘

Notice also that you use a single quotation mark for the end of the in-quote statement: “‘…at all!’…” Then you must use the double quotation marks to end your quotation: “‘…’…cried a little child” (8).

If you need to quote something that is already being quoted, you will need to cite it as an indirect

source and show that somebody else has originally quoted it. For example, you may have a

source that quotes from a story or from an interview with an author which was not published

anywhere else. The only way to quote the story or author is to quote this source. So, if you

wanted to use a secondary source to quote a change in the story by Hans Christian Andersen—

Herbert Rowland’s More Than Meets the Eye: Hans Christian Andersen and Nineteenth Century

Criticism, say—then you would quote Hans Christian Andersen and merely show in parentheses

that you are quoting him in Rowland’s book:

In a rare and never published version of "The Emperor's New Clothes," Hans Christian Andersen had originally used the word King instead of Emperor. Thus, the title read “The King’s New Clothes” and the key line in the story read "'But it is like the King has nothing on at all!' cried a little child" (qtd. in Rowland 8). This key difference helps to explain the exact idea Andersen had in mind when he wrote the story.

(Note: My example is fictional. Andersen did no such thing)

You should consult the OWL MLA style guide for other examples of how to cite a quotation

within a quotation and indirect sources.

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3. When do I use those three or four dots (ellipses)?

Whenever you want to leave out material from within a quotation, you need to use an ellipsis,

which is a series of three periods (it become four when you end a sentence with an ellipsis).

MLA recommends that you use brackets around an ellipsis in order to make it clear that you are

the one adding the ellipsis to your quotation. However, APA and other formatting guides do not

make this distinction. So, an ellipsis that is not confusingly added would look like this…when

you are just adding an ellipses to a quotation where you took out words and there was not already

an ellipses in the quotation, or like this […] when you are using an ellipsis in a quotation that

already contains one. The brackets show that you are adding your own ellipses. As with your use

of brackets, you should skip a space before and after them. However, you should not skip a space

when just adding an ellipsis. Here are a few rules to follow when using ellipses:

- Differentiate your use of ellipses from that of the author by putting your ellipses in brackets.

- Be sure that you do not fundamentally change the meaning of the quotation by omitting material.

Take a look at the following example which again adopts John Adam’s statement:

The full statement, as you recall, is as follows:

Twenty times, in the course of my late reading, have I been on the point of

breaking out, “this would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no

religion in it!!!!” But in this exclamation, I should have been as fanatical as Bryant

or Cleverly. Without religion, this world would be something not fit to be

mentioned in public company—I mean hell. (284)

What would happen, however, if you truncated it to read:

Twenty times, in the course of my late reading, have I been on the point of

breaking out […] I should have been as fanatical as Bryant or Cleverly […] I

mean hell. (284)

The reader's understanding of John Adams’ meaning and tone are severely affected by

incorrectly omitting information in the passage. Use your best judgment when omitting

information, and be on the up and up.

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- Do not use ellipses at the beginning or ending of quotations, unless it is important for the reader to know that the quotation was truncated.

For example, using an above example, you would NOT need an ellipsis in either of these

situations:

The original interview reads:

I couldn't believe it. It was just unreal and so sad. It was just unbelievable. I had never experienced such denial. I don't know why I felt so strongly. Perhaps it was because JFK was more to me than a president. He represented the hopes of young people everywhere.

Incorrect:

Jane Doe grappled with grief and disbelief. She had “[…] never experienced such denial […]" as when she learned of President Kennedy’s untimely death.

Correct:

Jane Doe grappled with grief and disbelief. She had “never experienced such denial" as when she learned of President Kennedy’s untimely death.

- Use punctuation marks in combination with ellipses when removing material from the end of sentences or clauses. Here you would use four dots.

For example, if you take material from the end of a sentence, keep the period in as usual.

"The boys ran to school, forgetting their lunches and books. Even though they were out of breath, they made it on time."

"The boys ran to school [. . .]. Even though they were out of breath, they made it on time."

Likewise, if you excerpt material at the end of a clause that ends in a comma, retain the comma.

"The red car came to a screeching halt that was heard by nearby pedestrians, but no one was hurt."

"The red car came to a screeching halt [. . .], but no one was hurt."

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4. When is it ok to insert my own words or change words in a quotation?

Sometimes it is necessary for clarity and flow to alter a word or words within a quotation. You

should make such changes rarely. In order to alert your reader to the changes you have made,

you should always bracket the altered words. Here are a few examples of situations when you

might need brackets.

- Changing verb tense or pronouns in order to be consistent with the rest of the sentence.

Suppose you were quoting a woman who, when asked about her experiences immigrating to the

United States, commented "nobody understood me." You might write:

Esther Hansen felt that when she came to the United States "nobody understood [her]."

In the above example, you have changed "me" to "her" in order to keep the quotation in third

person. However, you could avoid the need for this change by simply rephrasing:

"Nobody understood me," recalled Danish immigrant Esther Hansen.

- Include supplemental information that your reader needs in order to understand the quotation.

For example, if you were quoting someone's nickname, you might want to let your reader know

the full name of that person in brackets.

"The principal of the school told Billy [William Smith] that his contract would be terminated."

Similarly, if a quotation referenced an event with which the reader might be unfamiliar, you

could identify that event in brackets.

"We completely revised our political strategies after the strike [of 1934]."

- Use [sic] to indicate the use of nonstandard grammar or spelling or errors.

In rare situations, you may quote from a text that has nonstandard grammar, spelling, or word

choice. In such cases, you may want to insert [sic], which means "thus" or "so" in Latin. Using

[sic] alerts your reader to the fact that this nonstandard language is not the result of a typo or

grammatical error on your part. Always italicize "sic" and enclose it in brackets. There is no need

to put a period at the end. Here is an example of when you might use [sic]:

Twelve-year-old Betsy Smith wrote in her diary, "Father is afraid that he will be guilty of beach [sic] of contract."

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Here [sic] indicates that the original author wrote "beach of contract" instead of breach of

contract, which is the accepted terminology. Leave the error in the original and merely use [sic]

to show that it is not your error.

It is NOT necessary to use [sic] to announce a character’s dialect or way of speaking. Thus, if

you quote a character’s ungrammatical English, you should not use [sic]. Only use [sic] when

you are certain that there is an error in the original source.

5. Do not overuse brackets.

You should bracket capitalization changes that you make at the beginning of sentences. Suppose

you were going to use part of this quotation from Joe Brown, a veteran of the Second World

War:

"We never looked back, but the memory of our army days remained with us the rest of our lives."

If you wanted to begin a sentence with an excerpt from the middle of this quotation, you would

need to bracket your capitalization changes.

"[T]he memory of our army days remained with us the rest of our lives," commented Joe Brown, a World War II veteran.

Not

"The memory of our army days remained with us the rest of our lives," commented Joe Brown, a World War II veteran.

However, if you were inserting the beginning of Joe Brown’s statement into your own sentence,

you would need to use brackets to indicate that you were changing the capitalization.

At the 150th anniversary, an impassioned World War II veteran, Joe Brown, spoke about how many soldiers felt after the war, saying “[w]e never looked back” and “our army days remained with us the rest of our lives.”

Please ask me if you need me to clarify any of these guidelines. As with most of the material in

this class, it is your responsibility to learn how to integrate quotations correctly.

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Consider using the following template to set up your quotations, summaries, and

paraphrases of your sources. These templates will help you as you write your essay.

INTRODUCING QUOTATIONS

X states, “_________” (#).

As the prominent legal scholar X puts it, “_________” (#).

According to X, Professor of ____ at ______ University, “_________” (#).

In her book, ________, X maintains that “_________” (#).

Writing in the journal Commentary, X complains that “_________” (#).

In X’s view, “_________ ” (#).

X agrees when she writes, “_________”(#).

X disagrees when he writes, “_________”(#).

X complicates matters further when he writes, “_________” (#).

EXPLAINING QUOTATIONS

In other words, X believes _________.

In making this comment, X argues that _________.

X is insisting that _________.

X’s point is that _________.

The essence of X’s argument is that _________.

Basically, X is saying _________.

CONNECTING QUOTATIONS

X’s point speaks to what happens in the film.

X’s observation sheds light on a crucial moment of the film where ______.

If, as X states, _______, then ___character’s___ actions suggest _____.

Using X’s claim that _____, it appears the film is invested in showing _____.

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INTRODUCING AN ONGOING DEBATE

In X’s discussions of Y, X claims that _________. On one hand, _________. On the other hand,

_________. My own view is _________ because ______.

CAPTURING AUTHORIAL ACTION

X acknowledges that _________.

X agrees that _________.

X argues that _________.

X believes that _________.

X denies/does not deny that _________.

X complains that _________.

X concedes that _________.

X demonstrates that _________.

X deplores the tendency to _________.

X celebrates the fact that _________.

X emphasizes that _________.

X insists that _________.

X observes that _________.

X questions whether _________.

X refutes the claim that _________.

X reminds us that _________.

X reports that _________.

X suggests that _________.

X urges us to _________.