Incorporating Quotes Guided Notes
I.
Quoting from the text is one of the best ways to support your topic sentence.
a. You should only use a quote when it is the absolute best way to state your position.
Specifically, you should quote…
i. If the quote contains memorable language.
1. The author uses particularly colorful, amazing, fantastic language.
ii. If the quote is the most clear and concise language possible.
1. The author has made it nearly impossible to summarize this piece of
information because it is perfectly brief and crisp.
2. You may also quote if you have tried several times to summarize this
piece of information and you simply cannot do it in fewer words than the
quote.
iii. If adding the quote will bolster the authority of your topic sentence or argument.
1. Sometimes the author’s own words are the icing on the already terribly
convincing cake of your topic sentence.
b. If, and when, you decide to use a quote, you should quote only the meat of the
sentence, not the fat.
i. Only quote what is absolutely necessary, not what you can easily summarize in a
few words.
ii. You can also make some information from the quote evident from your lead-in.
c. When you quote, you must have a lead-in.
i. Lead-in’s let a reader know the speaker of the quote, what is going on in the
novel at the time of the quote, and any other important information.
ii. You should never start a sentence with a quote.
iii. Lead-in’s can be things like Kingsolver writes, Leah insists, Nathan preaches,
ect.
iv. The verb for the lead-in must accurately represent the quote it is preceding.
d. Use square brackets to indicate any change or addition to the quote.
i. These are most often used to clarify a pronoun if the subject is unclear.
e. Punctuation is retained at the end of the quote only if it is a question mark or an
exclamation point.
i. If you do retain the punctuation, the sentence punctuation still appears at the end
of the parentheses.
f. Once you have used a quote, you must show how or why that quote illustrates your
topic sentence.
i. Answer, what does the quote show?
II.
The best way to use quotes in your writing is to integrate them into your own sentences.
a. Integration is a good way to incorporate quotes without taking up a lot of space.
b. Integration allows you to use the writer’s words while still using your own ideas.
c. Make sure you follow the grammar of your sentence, even within the quote.
i. Square brackets come in pretty handy if you need to change the tense of some
of the words in the quote.
III.
Practice with integrating quotes
a. Use the topic sentence, Barbara Kingsolver uses dark and dangerous diction to
establish a foreboding tone in the first few pages of The Poisonwood Bible.
i. Kingsolver employs the chilling connotations of words like “skeletons” and
“strangling” to give the reader a foreboding sense (5).
ii. Kingsolver writes, “a choir of seedlings arching their necks out of rotted tree
stumps, sucking life out of death” (5). This quote shows the sheer ferocity of the
forest, a place willing to do anything to survive, even eat its own.
iii. The description of Orleanna’s feet as “helpless” birds gives the reader an even
deeper sense of the danger the Price family is about to face (6).