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How To Integrate Quotations

This document provides guidance on properly integrating quotations into academic writing. It outlines three options for introducing quotations: 1) with context, using a colon, 2) with a signal phrase and comma, or 3) fully integrating the quotation into a sentence. It also describes how to format quotations, including using brackets for citations, block quotations, quotations within quotations, shortening quotations, and paraphrasing.

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392 views

How To Integrate Quotations

This document provides guidance on properly integrating quotations into academic writing. It outlines three options for introducing quotations: 1) with context, using a colon, 2) with a signal phrase and comma, or 3) fully integrating the quotation into a sentence. It also describes how to format quotations, including using brackets for citations, block quotations, quotations within quotations, shortening quotations, and paraphrasing.

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api-238242808
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as DOC, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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How to Integrate Quotations

Do not merely drop a quotation into your work without properly introducing it or
integrating it fully into your sentence. You have three options:
Introduce the quotation with a statement that puts it in context. A colon follows a
formal statement or independent clause.
Example

Lynn Quitman Troyka warns us of the particular challenges of


using quotations in research papers: "The greatest risk you take
when you use quotations is that you will end up with choppy,
incoherent sentences" (184).

Use a signal phrase followed by a comma or a signal verb


followed by that to announce a quotation.
Example

- According to Lynn Quitman Troyka,


- The narrator suggests that
- As Jake Barnes says,
- Frye rejects this notion when he argues,

Integrate the quotation fully into your sentence. The quotation and your words
must add up to a complete sentence.
Example

We know the boy has learned a painful lesson when he says


that his eyes "burned with anguish and anger" (Thomson 481).

Insert an In-Text Citation (abbreviated information about the source in


brackets) after the quotation. (See the examples above.)
After you close the quotation, give the page number in brackets,
and then add the comma, period, semi-colon, colon or dash.
Place a question mark or exclamation point inside the final
quotation mark if it is part of the quotation, outside the closing
parenthesis if it is your own.
If the authors name is not mentioned in the signal phrase
preceding the quotation, then place the authors last name and
the page number, with no punctuation between them, in the

brackets. However, if the authors name is noted in the signal


phrase, or if you are writing an essay on only one primary source
(e.g. one short story), and the author is given, then you may omit
the authors name from the in-text citation.

Block Quotations
Indent longer quotations (more than four lines) ten spaces from the margin. Notice that
quotation marks are not used to enclose material that is set off from the text and that the
parenthetical reference is placed after the punctuation following the quotation.
Example

Early in the novel, Nick reveals his fascination with the


novel's central character:
Only Gatsby, the man who gives his name to this book, was exempt from
my reaction - Gatsby who represented everything for which I have an
unaffected scorn. If personality is an unbroken series of successful
gestures, there was something gorgeous about him, some heightened
sensitivity to the promises of life, as if he were related to one of those
intricate machines that register earthquakes ten thousand miles away.
(Fitzgerald 6)

Quotations Within Quotations


Use single quotation marks to enclose a quotation within a quotation.
Example

Jack Miller contends that "major religions are examples of


noble lies aimed at uplifting human stature" (B8).

Shortening Quotations
Use an ellipsis of three dots to shorten longer quotations by removing non-essential
words and ideas. To distinguish between your ellipsis and the spaced periods that
sometimes appear in works, place square brackets around the ellipsis points that you add.

The quotation must fit grammatically into the sentence even with
the ellipsis.
Retain enough of the quotation so that it still makes sense in
your essay and you do not distort its meaning.
Example

In surveying various responses to plagues in the Middle Ages,


Barbara W. Tuchman writes, "Medical thinking [...] stresses
air as the communicator of disease, ignoring sanitation or
visible carriers" (101-102).

Adding Material Within Quotations


Use square brackets to enclose material that you add to or change within a quotation to
allow it to fit grammatically into a sentence.
Example

The boy tells us that "while she [Mangan's sister] spoke she
turned a silver bracelet round and round her wrist" (Jones
207).

Quote Exactly
If you note an error of grammar or spelling in the original, follow it with the word [sic] in
square brackets.
Example

Smith realizes his folly when he says, "I cant [sic] believe I
just said that!" (39).

Paraphrasing: Using Your Own Words


When you paraphrase, you are taking information that you have read and putting it into
your own words. Paraphrasing is done to demonstrate that you understand what the
author wrote. When you paraphrase, you must also cite where you obtained the
information. Make sure that you entirely reword the passage.

Example

Original passage from a magazine article


The tight labour markets in various regions across Canada are
making it increasingly difficult for some organizations to hire
people with the needed skill sets. Organizations may be forced
to bring in underskilled workers because of the increasing
shortage of skilled workers.
Paraphrasing the passage - Put the main ideas into your
own words. Add a citation for the source.
The lack of an adequately trained workforce has meant that, in
certain Canadian markets, organizations will hire people who
do not have the necessary qualifications for the positions
(Murphy 11).

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