Integrating Direct Quotations Smoothly
1. Use direct quotations only when

The wording is particularly memorable or eloquent
George Bush responded eloquently to the 9/11 attacks when he said, “Terrorist attacks
can shake the foundations of our biggest buildings, but they cannot touch the
foundation of America.”

The wording is legalese or technical jargon it would be difficult to summarize in
your own words
The government limits which countries’ illegal immigrants it will hold when it states in
House of Representatives Bill 4437 that “[t]he mandatory detention requirement [. . .]
does not apply to any alien who is a native or a citizen of a country in the Western
Hemisphere with whose government the United States does not have full diplomatic
relations.”
2. Make sure your direct quotations are integrated with your own words. No quotation
"dumping"!

Signal phrase: tells who wrote or said the words being quoted, paraphrased, or
summarized. It can be in the beginning, middle, or end of the quotation.
In The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien notes, “A thing may happen and be a total
lie; another thing may happen and be truer than the truth” (83).
“[Dr. Suess] is remembered,” observes Quindlen, “for the murder of Dick and Jane,
which was a mercy killing of the highest order.”
*Note: original said “he”
“We cannot see yet how deliverance will come [. . .] but nothing is more certain than
that every trace of Hitler’s footsteps [. . .] will be sponged and purged and, if need be,
blasted from the surface of the earth,” reports Winston Churchill.
*Note: to indicate you have omitted information from between quotations, use ellipses
in brackets. Do not use ellipses to alter the meaning of a sentence or to indicate you
have taken information from the beginning or end of the sentence.

Interpretative phrase: phrase that explains what the quotation means
In his novel Breakfast of Champions, Kurt Vonnegut explains why some people used
drugs: “People took such awful chances with chemicals and their bodies because they
wanted the quality of their lives to improve. They lived in ugly places where there were
only ugly things to do” (71).

NOT a lone quotation
George Bush responded immediately to the 9/11 attacks. “Terrorist attacks can shake
the foundations of our biggest buildings, but they cannot touch the foundation of
America.” He also soon after described America’s plan to find and capture key Al
Qaeda members.
3. Make sure the grammar and punctuation are correct
According to my mother, “To. . .
My mother believes that “allowing illegal immigrants a path to citizenship is a form of
amnesty, but that it is unfeasible to deport 12 million people.”
On the NPR show All Things Considered, the ICE agent explained the difficulties involved
in arresting some illegal immigrants:
I had a difficult time arresting an illegal immigrant mother who was eight months
pregnant and working 40 hours a week as housekeeper. She was the only one at home
with her two children when I came to the door, and I couldn’t take her in. What could I
do?
Note: MLA states that long direct quotations (4 or more lines) get special formatting: no
quotation marks, indented one inch, start on a new line, and the parenthetical citations (if
needed) come after the period.