Using Lead-in and Lead-outs with Direct Quotes
**In my paper, I must cite where my quote came from in a PARENTHETICAL CITATION! Use the
author’s last name and page number for books.
Quote with a Lead-in
Original Quote:
“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.” Page 2
Quote with Lead-in:
Nick states that Gatsby “represented everything for which I have an unaffected scorn” (Fitzgerald 2).
**Everything NOT in direct quotations is my own words that I made up to make the direct quote a
COMPLETE SENTENCE!
Source Without an Author:
Use author’s last name for websites.
Sometimes, when using a website, an author’s name is not available. Use whatever appears FIRST in
your bibliographic entry in the parenthetical citation.
For example, this source did not have an author listed. I skip the author’s name and go to the next piece of
information required.
One source states that it is “Gatsby’s capacity for hope that makes Nick’s paradoxical admiration possible”
(Prentice Hall Literature Study Guide: The Great Gatsby 10).
**Notice that in all cases, the period goes AFTER the parenthetical citation.
Quote with a Lead –in and a Lead-out
Original Quote:
“If personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures, then 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.” Page 2
Quote with Lead-in and Lead-out:
Nick admits that in spite of Gatsby’s flaws, “there was something gorgeous about him” that he admires
(Fitzgerald 2).
**I pick out the part of the quote that is important to my paper, and I come up with my own words to
make the quote fit into a COMPLETE SENTENCE!
If you use the author’s name in your lead-in or lead-out,
then you do not have to include it in your parenthetical citation. You would just put the page number.
Fitzgerald writes, “Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes us. It eludes
us then, but that’s no matter—to-morrow we will run faster, stretch out arms out farther…and one fine
morning” (180).
Quoting Dialouge:
When quoting dialogue you still must use quotation marks to show that you are citing and the quotation marks
that indicate dialogue. The beginning and end of the quote gets a “ while the dialogue within the “ gets a ‘. See
below.
Example:
Myrtle taunts Tom when she screams “‘Daisy! Daisy! Dai--’” (Fitzgerald 37).
Catherine tells Nick about how Tom and Myrtle hate their spouses: “‘Can’t stand them.’ She looked at Myrtle
and then at Tom. ‘What I say is, why go on living with them if they can’t stand them? If I was them I’d get a
divorce and get married to each other right away’” (Fitzgerald 33).
Now you try!
Original Quote:
“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” Page 18
Quote with a Lead-in:
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Original Quote:
“Every one suspects himself of at least one of the cardinal virtues, and this is mine: I am on one of the few
honest people I know.” Page 59
Quote with a Lead-out:
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Original Quote:
“Myrtle Wilson’s body, wrapped in a blanket, and then another blanket, as though she suffered from a chill in
the hot night, lay on the work table by the wall, and Tom, with his back to us, was bending over it, motionless”
page 138.
Quote with a lead-in and a lead-out:
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Original Quote:
“Nothing happened,” he said wanly. “I waited, and about four o’clock she came to the window and stood there
for a minute and then turned out the light.” Page 147
Quote with Dialogue:
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