How Do I Incorporate Quotes?

For Nick, who remarks that Gatsby “turned out all right” , the hero deserves respect but perhaps does not inspire great admiration. “Our baby was a boy,” Shukumar tells his wife in the conclusion of Lahiri’s “A Temporary Matter” . [data sentence; orienter after quote] This admission is a death knell, tolling the end of their failing marriage. Alternatively, MLA requires your quote to consist of more than four lines. Have you ever wondered how to put a quote in your essay? For some helpful guidance and practice on identifying and citing sources clearly, check out U of M Library’s Research Guides.

You must put a double set of “quotation marks” around any words that you use from your source, and the quoted material must be exactly the same as the original. To put a quote in an essay, incorporate it directly into a sentence if it’s shorter than 4 typed lines. For example, you could write “According to researchers,” and then insert the quote.

How do I Incorporate Quoted Material?

Pick a quotation that supports your argument and convinces your reader. Usually, it is the results of credible research, an opinion of a subject matter expert, or confirmed statistics. You can also quote from the text you’re reviewing or critiquing to back up your opinion. You might be wondering why you should consider using inspirational quotes in your essays.

A colon should always be used to introduce a quotation after an independent clause. He received his PhD in English Literature and Medieval Studies from the University of Texas at Austin in 2014.

Citing Your Quote

For MLA formatting, you’ll prepare a Works Cited page, APA formatting requires a References page, and Chicago Style formatting will have either a References page or a Bibliography. On this page, list all of your sources in alphabetical order, along with the publishing information. This allows your reader to find the sources you used in your paper. This is a useful option if you are quoting an academic source or a critic. In the introductory phrase, use the last name of the person who wrote the quote you are sourcing. Follow the introductory phrase by a comma and then the quote. If a quotation begins the sentence, set it off with a comma from the unquoted part of the sentence unless it ends with a question mark or exclamation point.

They are used to indicate the information taken from a source with no alterations. Inspirational quotes inspire, they motivate, they encourage, the provoke thought. You might even consider picking an inspirational quote to base your entire essay on. For example, Mark Twain’s famous quote, “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. Discover.” could be used as a topic outline for an essay on adult education, starting your own business, or even living the life of an expat. When following APA citation guidelines, you will include the publication year after the name of the writer. If you quote words that are in quotation marks in the original, such as character dialogue in a novel, then use double quote marks enclosing single quote marks.

Expressing  a Quote within a Quote

May and might are two modal verbs that often get… In this sentence, In 1910, GK Chesterton wrote about the issue in Alarms introducing quotes in essays and Discursions is an independent clause. Miranda Terry has taught middle school science and social studies for two years.

If you add any words to a quote, perhaps to make the quote work grammatically in your sentence structure, you must use square brackets around the added material. There are a few ways to use the narrative style to introduce a direct quote. Quoting means using a part of a source word for word, exactly as it was originally said or written. You might quote a phrase or an entire sentence – or even a few sentences.

Be sure that you dont fundamentally change the meaning of the quotation by omitting material

When you use a short quote, include it directly in your paragraph, along with your own words. Using a direct quote in your essay is a great way to support your ideas with concrete evidence, which you need to support your thesis. To select a good quote, look for a passage that supports your argument and is open to analysis. Then, incorporate that quote into your essay, and make sure you properly cite it based on the style guide you’re using. A short direct quotation contains fewer than 40 words from the original source.

• It is therefore very important to learn to paraphrase accurately and cite your sources according to a recognized manual of style.
• Question marks and exclamation points go outside of the final quotation mark if the punctuation mark is part of your sentence–your question or your exclamation (“like this”?).
• The next section will tackle how you can properly quote a quote.
• As a member, you’ll also get unlimited access to over 88,000 lessons in math, English, science, history, and more.
• It doesn’t matter which style of writing you are using – all literary styles require the use of proper citations whenever you are including words that are not your own in your work.

Because the quote is set off in a block, you don’t need to put quotation marks around it. Direct quotations involve incorporating another person’s exact words into your own writing. Do not open a quotation and fail to close it at the end of the quoted material. Capitalize the first letter of a direct quote when the quoted material is a complete sentence. Incorporating direct quotes into your writing introduce a quote is an excellent way to expand upon and back up your ideas with solid, fact based evidence. Additionally, quotes help to support your argument and can be used to develop your topic ideas or thesis statement. However, in order for your paper to look polished, and also to remove all risk of being accused of plagiarism you must understand how to properly cite any quotes you decide to use.

Use Colons to Introduce Run

A quote doesn’t support your ideas unless you analyze it and link it back to your thesis. After the quote, write 1-3 sentences explaining what the quote means, why it supports your topic sentence, and how it supports your argument overall. Whenever you use quotes in a paper or essay, you need to cite them properly so you are not liable for plagiarism. Always follow the citation style assigned by your instructor. They may prefer APA style, MLA style, or Chicago Style citations. To introduce a quote in an essay, don’t forget to include author’s last name and page number or author, date, and page number in your citation.

A block quote requires more commentary than a short quote. At a minimum, write 2-3 sentences analyzing the quote and linking it back to your thesis. However, you may need to provide longer commentary to fully explain the quote to your reader. Put brackets around words you need to add to a quote for clarification. Sometimes you need to add a word or words to a quote in order for your reader to understand it.

Direct Quotes

We see this self doubt again in the second scene, when Agatha comments, “Oh, times like this I just don’t know whether I am right or wrong, good or bad” (p. ##). It is acceptable to input the name of the author either before the quote, or in parentheses at the conclusion of the quote. The page number will be written at the end, there is no need to use anything to signify that it is a page number.

The key to using quotes effectively is to always use a lead-in or introduction to the quote. Try using an introductory phrase or verb to lead into the quote. You can also use your own assertions to introduce the quote in the text. On this page we clarify the purpose of using literary quotations in literary analysis papers by exploring why quotations are important to use in your writing and then explaining how to do this. Introduce a long direct quote, then set it off in a block. A long quote is anything that’s longer than 4 typed lines. You’ll present these quotes in a block of text set off from the rest of your paragraph.

Introducing a Block Quote

Similarly, you may want to cut out words that aren’t essential to the quote’s meaning. To cut out a word or words, you just need to put an ellipsis (…) in place of the words. Once you have introduced the quote in your paper properly, read it out loud to confirm it flows with the rest of the content. Check that the sentence fits within the rest of the paragraph. Make sure you are consistent with how you introduce quotes in the paper.

• Godfried remarks, “Ignorance is a skill learned by many of the greatest fools” (author’s last name p.##).
• However, let’s say you were using a journal article to provide a critic’s perspective on an author’s work.
• Incorporating direct quotes into your writing is an excellent way to expand upon and back up your ideas with solid, fact based evidence.
• Take note, if you use a quote in your essay and you neglect to give the proper credit to the original source – you are committing plagiarism.
• A colon, if you use a complete sentence before inserting the quotation.

It is also indented one-half inch on the left to set it apart. Lawrence insisted that books “are not life”; however, he wrote exultantly about the power of the novel.

Introducing Sources

Instead, use a paraphrase or a summary to support your ideas. The reader will recognize that the material is a direct quote because it’s set off from the rest of the text. However, you will include your citation at the bottom. Paraphrase the quote if you can restate the author’s ideas in your own words. Paraphrasing is when you restate someone else’s ideas in your own words. It’s a great way to incorporate evidence into your paper without using a direct quote every time.