Stafford/AmLit/Writing Quotation Integration 1
Your Name: _________________
Throughout the year, we will work on Quotation Integration; this sheet will focus solely on
punctuation with quotations. The first helpful hint: If you are not sure whether to punctuate your
introduction to a quotation, mentally remove the quotation marks, and ask yourself whether any
punctuation is still required.
1. Introduce the quotation with a complete sentence and a colon.
Example: In The Crucible, Miller describes the Salem vestry room which was serving as
the General Court: “The room is solemn, even forbidding. Heavy beams just out, boards
of random widths make up the walls” (Miller 83).
Hint: This is an easy rule to remember: if you use a complete sentence to introduce a quotation,
you need a colon after the sentence. Using a comma in this situation will most likely create a
comma splice.
2. Use an introductory or explanatory phrase, but not a complete sentence, separated from
the quotation with a comma.
Example: In “Prologue,” Bradstreet suggests her understanding of Puritan women’s roles
by writing, “Men can do best, and Women know it well / Preeminence in all and each
is yours” (Bradstreet 212).
Example: Describing the sudden and bizarre change in the socio-politic climate, Miller
says, “I had the sensation of being trapped inside a perverse work of art, one of those
Escher constructs in which it is impossible to make out whether a stairway is going up
or down” (Miller 4).
Hint: You should use a comma to separate your own words from the quotation when your
introductory or explanatory phrase ends with a verb such as says, said, asks, thinks, believes,
pondered, believes, notes, comments, observes, remarks, recalls, concludes, reports, adds, (and
more). You should also use a comma when you introduce a quotation with a phrase such as
"According to Miller,”. . ." or “In Miller’s words, “. . .” or In Miller’s view, “. . .”
3. Make the quotation a part of your own sentence without any punctuation between your
own words and the words you are quoting.
Example: Miller says that people were in a state of constant fear because “an ideological
war is like guerilla war, since the enemy is an idea whose proponents are not in uniform
but are disguised as ordinary citizens” (Miller 2).
Example: Miller says that “an ideological war is like guerrilla war, since the enemy is an
idea whose proponents are not in uniform but are disguised as ordinary citizens” (Miller
2).
Hint: The “that” and “as”: If you are blending the quotation in your own sentence using the
conjunction that or as, you do not need any punctuation at all; “that” and “as” replace your
comma. You either can add a comma after "says," or you can add the word "that," with no
comma.
Example: Miller interprets The Red Scare as “an ideological war” (Miller 2).
Example: When reviewing The Crucible on Broadway, Finkle described Liam Neeson’s
performance of John Proctor as “a naked force of nature. The message is that this is a
man-mountain of strength” (Finkle 1).
4. Use very short quotations--only a few words--as part of your own sentence.
Example: In the third act, following her confession, Mary Warren appears “utterly
confounded” and then she “starts to whimper, hands half raised, powerless” as she
succumbs to the pressure of the other girls (Miller 116).
Example: Miller described his reaction as a “sensation of being trapped inside a
perverse work of art” and likened it to “one of those Escher constructs in which it is
impossible to make out whether a stairway is going up or down” (Miller 4).