Quoting Within an Essay

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Quoting Within an Essay in Snippets

How Much/When:
Quote sparingly, in snippets (small bits of text), paraphrasing most of your information so that your voice as a writer comes through. Below are two of the most common reasons for quoting.
-- The original wording of the quotation is so powerful that to change it would diminish its impact.
-- The quotation provides necessary authority and support for your idea.

How to Weave Quotations into Your Writing:

Quotations cannot be simply dropped into an essay. Instead, they should be logically and smoothly integrated. Pay attention to the sentence or phrase that precedes the quotation and sets up expectations in readers' minds, as well as to ways you follow up the quotation, explaining its significance and linking it with your own subsequent sentences.

The following examples, taken from an essay analyzing if and why racism exists on college campuses, demonstrate weak integration. Ways to revise them follow. Examples follow MLA format.

Example A: Weak Integration:
� Minorities may feel pressured to alter a way of life to which they have become accustomed. "Moreover, the behavior, lifestyle, and values of minority students are likely to be substantially different from those of whites" (Jones and Farrell 212).

(Note: in the example above, readers expect the quotation to be about altering the minorities' way of life. It is not. What relationship do you see between the quotation and the sentence that precedes it? The quotation tells why minorities may feel pressured, and the relationship would be clearer if the passage were revised as follows:)
� Minorities may feel pressured to alter a way of life to which they have become accustomed because their "behavior, lifestyle, and values . . . are likely to be substantially different from those of whites" (Jones and Farrell 212).

Example B: Weak integration:
� The administration at the University of Missouri believes that with a constant recruitment of minority students over the next couple of years, the ratio of minorities to white students will become much more equal. "All students grow by meeting people unlike themselves" (Brown A1). The administration at the University of Missouri hopes that this is true for its university.

(Note: In the example above, the reader expects the quotation to be about the ratio of minorities to white students becoming more equal. Instead, it talks about the advantages of a more equal ratio. Here's a more effective revision:)
� The administration at the University of Missouri believes that with a constant recruitment of minority students over the next couple of years, the ratio of minorities to white students will become more equal, thereby allowing "students [to] grow by meeting people unlike themselves" (Brown A1).

Note: the use of brackets denotes an alteration of the original text to match the fluidity of the sentence.

Quoting Shakespeare (or lines of poetry):

Quotations need to be worked into texts, but some efforts to do this actually stop essays dead in their tracks. Here a student thinks she must officially begin the quotation with a clause like He states:

Original:
The tension builds when Brutus accuses Cassius of accepting bribes. He states, "Let me tell you, Cassius, you yourself / Are much condemned to have an itching palm, / To sell and mart your offices for gold . . ." (4.3.9-11).

Revised:
The tension builds when Brutus accuses Cassius of accepting bribes: "Let me tell you, Cassius, you yourself / Are much condemned to have an itching palm, / To sell and mart your offices for gold . . ." (4.3.9-11).

Cutting He states allows a stronger, livelier bridge to the quotation. And, notice how the example uses the slash (/) to denote a line break � very important!

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