Quote Integration

Quote Integration

Quoting is the easiest and most direct way to bring an outside source’s information into your text.

 

How it Helps

Lends credibility to your text

Offers a secondary voice which will contrast your own and articulate complex ideas

Provides an excellent framework to write around

Lends evidence which you could not provide yourself

 

Integration

There are multiple ways to weave quotes into a paragraph

Using a Colon:

(A full sentence explaining, introducing, or relating to the idea the quote contains): “The quote which provides an example of the idea introduced in the sentence prior to it” (the citation). Then another sentence expanding on the idea the quote introduced, or further relating it to your text.

 

Ex: Beauséant’s exile due to a failed love affair makes it clear to Rastignac the brutality of struggling to maintain status in Paris and the glee with which the other aristocrats flock to see one another fail: “High society had thronged there in such numbers, with everyone eager to see this great lady at the moment of her downfall” (Balzac 234).

 

Seamlessly weaving:

Sentence introducing an idea “a quote that continues it without  negatively affecting the fluency of the sentence” (citation).

Ex: Rastignac thought the old man had once been “patient, active, energetic, consistent, prompt to deliver” but he had become old and crusty like a dry pancake (Balzac 80).

 

Block Quotes:

Only use block quotes when all the information in the quote is necessary.

 

Block quotes function exactly as the name implies, it is a block of text from the source material surrounded by explanation and analysis. They are indented 1 inch and double-spaced like the rest of the paper.

 

Ex: Douglas Adams satirizes the incessant–and ultimately pointless–struggle of capitalism in his purposely vague and alienated description of the monetary system:

 

“This planet has – or rather had – a problem, which was this: most of the people on it were

unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but

most of these were largely concerned with the movements of small green pieces of

paper, which is odd because on the whole it wasn’t the small green pieces of paper that

were unhappy” (Adams 1).

 

Outlining

Outlining

When to do it: before you begin writing the paper

What purpose does it serve: mapping the paper so writing it will be easy and visibly planned

How to do it: There are a myriad of methods ranging from formal styles which some professors may require, or less structured approaches which can be equally effective.

 

Roman Numeral Format

1. Introduction

1. Thesis
2. Some details of what the paper will cover

1. Body Paragraph 1 (Repeat this format for any body paragraph)

1. Topic sentence
2. Evidence (writing is easier when you have to work around planned)
   1. You can also pre-write the sentences that will be directly around the evidence here
3. Evidence
4. Evidence

III. Conclusion

1. Restating of thesis
2. Summarizing most important points made in the body

 

Bare Necessities Format

Intro

Thesis:

Body paragraph 1 (Repeat format for any body paragraph)

Main Idea:

Evidence

Evidence

Evidence