Blending Quotations
Blending (or integrating) quotations
means “to weave the author’s words
into your own sentences.” Quotations
should not just be thrown into your
essay.
The Basics
 If writing about a text that you have access to, then ALWAYS
utilize direct quotation (to some degree; don’t go overboard).
 Use your own words in conjunction with a quotation, so that a
sentence contains both your thoughts and the original
writer’s.
 DO NOT put quotes alone in a sentence. In other words,
don’t let a piece of textual evidence stand alone as its own
sentence (unless it’s multiple sentences long). Instead,
introduce them seamlessly in a way that they are part of your
own sentence.
How to Pick Quotations
 Look for quotations that say EXACTLY what you already
needed/wanted to say.
 Pick quotations that are worded in such a way that if you
were to put them in your own words, they would lose some of
their effect.
 Look for quotations that are brilliantly, beautifully, shockingly,
cleverly, amusingly, profoundly worded.
Stand Alone (or Floating)
Quotations
 NEVER DO THIS!
 On Thursday, Yahoo announced its email service had been
hit by a coordinated cyberattack resulting in the usernames
and passwords of an undisclosed number of Yahoo Mail
accounts to be compromised. “The company said the
information was stolen from a third party database. The
accounts were then accessed to gather information about
recently emailed addresses.” It’s the second email problem in
the last two months for Yahoo and the company said it took
immediate action to minimize the damage to users whose
accounts were involved.
Integrating a Quotation into Your
Own Sentence
 The basic form is to introduce the quotation with
“He said, …” or “She wrote, …”
 Use this when you need to quote an entire
sentence, but use it sparingly. You should quote
entire sentences pretty rarely.
 Mukherjee wrote, “I needed to put roots down, to vote and
make the difference that I could.”
 Comma goes after wrote, said, claimed, explained, etc., but
before the quotation mark.
 Capitalize the first word of the quotation like a new sentence.
 Period goes inside the quotation mark.
 “I needed to put roots down, to vote and make the difference
that I could,” Mukherjee wrote.
 “I needed to put roots down,” wrote Murkherjee, “to vote and
make the difference that I could.”
Instead of always using writes or
says, try to use stronger verbs,
such as
adds
admits
agrees
argues
asserts
believes
claims
comments
compares
demonstrates
denies
emphasizes
illustrates
implies
insists
notes
observes
points out
reasons
states
suggest
thinks
Integrating a Quotation into Your
Own Sentence
 Most of the time, it’s most effective to incorporate
phrases and clauses from the original text blending
them into your own sentences.
 Result must be grammatically correct and
syntactically fluent. Make sure you do not create a
comma splice or run-on sentence.
 Don’t add commas unless the sentence would
naturally require them.
 Mukherjee explains a sense of belonging, “to put roots down,
to vote and make the difference that I can.”
 Imagine the sentence without the quotation marks to check
for grammatical correctness.
 Mukherjee explains a sense of belonging, to put roots down,
to vote and make the difference that I can.
 Not grammatical, so rephrase/rearrange to make the
sentence grammatical.
 Mukherjee explains that to feel a sense of belonging, a
person needs “to put roots down, to vote and make the
difference that [she] can.”
Integrating a Quotation into Your
Own Sentence
 You can change verb tenses, singular/plural
nouns, pronouns, etc. to make the sentence
grammatical.
 You can also add functional words like prepositions
and conjunctions. You just can’t add words that
change the content/message of the quotation.
 Any additions/changes are indicated by square
brackets.
 Mukherjee explains a sense of belonging, “to put roots down,
to vote and make the difference that I can.”
 You are the writer of this sentence, so the “I” in the quotation
doesn’t make sense.
 Mukherjee explains that to feel a sense of belonging, a
person needs “to put roots down, to vote and make the
difference that [she] can.”
 Mukherjee told how in the past she had “vote[d] and [made]
the difference that she [could].”
 Original: “It arrived on Christmas morning.”
 Blended quotation: The author wrote a story about how “[the
package] arrived on Christmas morning.”
Pulling in quotations to blend:
A German shepherd is back on solid ground after being
rescued from a sinkhole that opened up in a Buffalo park.
The 3-year-old dog named Mack dropped more than 10
feet to the bottom of the watery hole during a Sunday
morning walk with his owner, Mattie Moore, who nearly
fell in herself. Moore's 911 call brought the fire
department's technical rescue team to Martin Luther King
Jr. Park, where a broken underground water pipe had
eroded the soil and created an opening about 2 feet
across on the surface but wider below.
After “dropp[ing] more than 10 feet to the bottom of [a]
watery hole,” Mack the German Shepherd is safe
following a rescue by the Buffalo Fire Department.
Pulling in quotations to blend:
It's already seemed like a brutally long, cold winter. But
handlers for groundhog Punxsutawney Phil say he's
forecasting six more weeks of the same. Pennsylvania's
famed groundhog emerged from his lair in front of
thousands of fans around daybreak Sunday. Legend has
it that if the furry rodent sees his shadow on Feb. 2,
winter will last another month-and-a-half. If he doesn't
see it, spring will come early.
Punxsutawney Phil, the groundhog responsible for
whether we see an early spring or not, has “forecast[ed]
six more weeks of the same” weather that has already
made this a miserable winter.
Pulling in quotations to blend:
Exercise could make you a better student. A study of
Kansas elementary and middle school students found a
link between physical fitness and better performance on
math and reading exams. The study followed the fitness
of 13,000 students two years ago.
Researchers have discovered “a link between physical
fitness and better performance on math and reading
exams,” so do some pushups before you take your EOCs
this spring.
Omitting Unnecessary Info
 You can eliminate unneeded parts of your quotation by
using an ellipsis (…)
 You only need to use this when you omit something in
the middle of a quotation.
 Original Quote: “The day began as normal but ended up being a
disaster.”
 With ellipsis: “The day… ended up being a disaster.”
 Blended with my own writing: I was hoping everything would go
according to plan, but “the day… ended up being a disaster.”
 You never need to use ellipses at the beginning or end
of a quotation. Don’t do this:
 I was hoping everything would go according to plan, but it “…ended up
being a disaster.”
 I had a plan and “the day began as normal…”
 DON’T DO THIS:
 Mukherjee explains her desire for a place to belong. This
can be seen in the quotation, “I need to put roots down, to
vote and make the difference that I can.”
Citing Your Quotations
 When appropriate, include the author and page number in
parentheses at the end of the quotation.
 The citation goes OUTSIDE the quotation marks, but before
the period.
 “This is an amazing quotation” (Mullins 1977).
 If you include the author’s name prior to the quotation (earlier
in the paragraph), then you can omit their name from the
citation.
 As Mullins once said, “This is an amazing quotation” (1977).
 If you cite the same source multiple times in a row, you don’t
need to continue to include the last name in the citation.
Write a summary paragraph.
 Include at least three quotations that are correctly
and grammatically blended.