WRITING AND
INCORPORATING QUOTES
EFFECTIVELY
Mini-Lesson
Punctuation is IMPORTANT

To avoid confusing your readers, punctuate
quotations correctly, and work them smoothly into
your writing.
 Punctuation
•
•
shows your readers:
which words are yours
which words you have quoted
Direct/Indirect Quotations


Direct quotations involve incorporating another
person's exact words into your own writing.
Indirect quotations are not exact wordings but
rather rephrasings or summaries of another person's
words. In this case, it is not necessary to use
quotation marks. However, indirect quotations still
require proper citations, and you will be commiting
plagiarism if you fail to do so.
Direct/Indirect Quotations



Use direct quotations when the source material uses
language that is particularly striking or notable. Do
not rob such language of its power by altering it.
Use an indirect quotation (or paraphrase) when you
merely need to summarize key incidents or details
of the text.
Use direct quotations when the author you are
quoting has coined a term unique to her or his
research and relevant within your own paper.
Punctuating Brief Quotations

Quoting a Sentence or Sentences:
 Gene
begins to reveal his internal war with
Finny when he says, “What was I doing up here
anyway? Why did I let Finny talk me into
stupid things like this?” (5).
 Notice
how my words (Gene begins to reveal his internal war
with Finny when he says) lead into the quote I have chosen to
use.
Punctuating Brief Quotations

Quoting a Fragment:
 Jack
is not able to kill the piglet during their first
attempt at hunting for food “because of the
enormity of the knife descending and cutting
into the living flesh; because of the unbearable
blood” (31).
 Again,
notice how my words lead into the quote.
Quoting a Quotation



Ron said, “Dad yelled, ‘No way!’”
Golding writes, “Jack seized the conch.
‘Ralph’s right of course. There isn’t a snakething. But if there was a snake we’d hunt it
and kill it.’” (36).
Just like Leper in A Separate Peace, my brother
Shaun said, “‘You always were a savage
underneath.’”
Quotations with Brief Insertions


(Using Brackets)
It is evident that Finny believes in the war before his fall
from the tree because he tells Gene, “I’m wearing this
[his pink shirt] as an emblem. We haven’t got a flag, we
can’t float Old Glory proudly out the window. So I’m
going to wear this, as an emblem” (11).

Use brackets when you are inserting your own words into
a quote in order to make the meaning of the quote more
clear.
How To Integrate Quotes

When you are using brief quotations, you must
integrate them—
 work
them smoothly into your sentences
 show
their relevance to your ideas.
NOT Integrated

Brinker becomes disillusioned with the war,
and Ralph becomes disillusioned with the
glory of being chief. “He found himself
understanding the wearisomness of this life,
where every path was an improvisation and
a considerable part of one’s walking life was
spent watching one’s feet” (76).
Integrated

In the same way that Brinker becomes
disillusioned with the war, Ralph begins to feel
a sense of disillusionment toward the glory of
being chief. Golding’s narrator begins to allude
to Ralph’s waning enjoyment of being the
leader on the island when he states, “he found
himself understanding the wearisomness of
this life, where every path was an improvisation
and a considerable part of one’s walking life
was spent watching one’s feet” (76).
Methods for Inserting Brief Quotations

Final Position
 For
several reasons, “all of them, all except
Phineas, constructed at infinite cost to themselves
these Maginot Lines against an enemy they thought
they saw across the frontier”.

Beginning Position
wept for the end of innocence, the darkness
of man’s heart, and the fall through the air of the
true, wise friend called Piggy,” declares Golding’s
narrator at the end of his novel.
 “Ralph
Methods for Inserting Brief Quotations

Middle Position
 In
the same way William Golding’s novel has been
considered a “body of work that speaks to the
tragedy of the human condition,” John Knowles’ A
Separate Peace can be considered a work of literature
that shines a light into the dark recesses of the
human heart.
Interrupted

“As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods,”
proclaims King Lear, “– They kill us for their
sport." This proclamation by an old king who
has just realized that everything he once held
dear-- territory and power– has been stripped
from him by his own flesh and blood–
daughters Regan and Goneril– is said to have
inspired the title of William Golding’s Nobel
Prize winning novel, Lord of the Flies.
Works Cited

If the author is introduced at the beginning of the
sentence:
 According
to researcher, Carl Smithton, “95% of all
cats prefer love seats instead of bean bag chairs”
(page number).
 If not,
 Research
has shown that “95% of all cats prefer love seats
instead of bean bag chairs” (Smithton, 95).

Ray Bradbury uses repetition to reinforce main
ideas in his writing. For example, in the short story
“All Summer in a Day,” Bradbury attempts to make
the reader understand the magnitude of seven
years worth of rain by writing that the children
“glanced out at the world that was raining now and
raining and raining steadily” (56). This quote shows
that while Bradbury knows his audience is familiar
with rain, the concept of seven years of constant
rain is so unimaginable that it must be repeated. It
also emphasizes the continuous and monotonous
nature of long and steady rainfalls.