Workshop on Citations and
Audience
Workshop on Use of Sources
• Step 1: Mark quote or paraphrase in your essay
(underline, highlight in yellow, whatever works for
you).
• Step 2: Mark all of the places where you
INTRODUCE your quotes or paraphrases, or give
context for them, in a different way (different color,
dotted underline, etc).
• Step 3: Highlight all of the places where you
RESPOND to quotes by explaining, giving an
additional example, or agreeing/disagreeing, in a
THIRD way.
Look at your highlighting.
• Are there any places where you have a lot of quote,
but not a lot introduction and explanation?
• Do you need to remove some of the quote?
Remove any bits of the quote that aren’t relevant
to your response.
• Do you need to add more to your introduction or
response?
• Make sure that your response addresses any important
issues the quote brings up.
Double check for in text citations.
• Look back at your yellow quotes/paraphrases.
Highlight or mark the place where you give credit
to the author (or, if you don’t know the author, the
article/source). Every quote should have SOME
marking.
• You might give credit in an in-text citation (the
author or article name in parentheses).
• You might give credit in a “signal phrase.” (The
author’s name mentioned in the introduction of
the quote.)
Digging Deeper…
• Each introduction of a quote should:
• Connect the quote to the point you are currently making.
• Prepare your readers to notice what you want them to take away
from the quote.
• Give your readers any context that they need in order to
understand the quote.
• Each response to a quote should:
• Deal specifically with the issues that are raised in the quote. It
might also…
• Explain an idea from the quote further. (Not just repeating the ideas
from the quote in new words.)
• Give a new example of an idea from the quote.
• Agree or disagree with an opinion displayed in the quote and
explain your agreement/disagreement.
• Connect the quote to a point your have made somewhere else on
the paper, or to another quote.
Revising for Audience
• Remember, your audience for this essay is other
college-educated students, professors, and
members of the college community.
• Based on that very broad audience, read through
your essay and make sure that you have addressed
the needs that this audience will have.
• Do you use logos to appeal to reason?
• Do you avoid logical fallacies and broad generalizations
about your audience?
• Do you make clear to your audience what is at stake in
regards to the issue your paper is about?
Revising for Style
• Examine your introduction and the beginnings of your
paragraphs. Do you have any “throat clearing”?
• “Throat clearing” usually takes the form of sentences
you wrote to get your ideas flowing that are extremely
general and not appropriate for a paper at this level for
this audience. For example, “Every day all over the
world people see pop culture.” This sentence is so
broad that it does nothing to indicate what about pop
culture you are going to be discussing, nor does it say
anything beyond the obvious about how pop culture
functions on a global scale.
Revising for Style
• Read your essay quietly to yourself OUT LOUD. Are
your sentences smooth and easy to read? Are there
places you stumble? If so, your reader will probably
stumble as well.
• Are there places where the connections between
your ideas are unclear? Decide HOW ideas are
connected and use templates from the appropriate
chapters of They Say, I Say to make the connection
clearer.
• Review lesson on quality introductions and
conclusions and improve these areas of your paper.