The biggest mistake that students make when quoting from sources is in depending too much on the quotation instead of providing an argument. There are two main reasons why this can happen:
The student recognizes that the quoted material is relevant to the argument, but the student has not taken the time to understand the material well enough to put it into his or her own words.
The student has procrastinated on working on the assignment and depends on quotations to make the argument instead of weaving evidence from the sources into an argument.
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Providing a Context for a Quotation
A writer uses long quotations to introduce another voice into his or her paper. For this reason, before each quotation, a writer needs to provide some context for the reader in order for the writer to announce the new voice in the paper. Basically, there are two kinds of context: physical and grammatical.
Physical Context
Providing physical context can be as simple as identifying who says the quotation in what text:
In "Letter from Birmingham Jail," Martin Luther King quotes a "distinguished juror" stating, "justice too long delayed is justice denied" (King).
"The Writer" by Richard Wilbur begins with the metaphor of a sailing ship to describe writing, but then rejects that "easy figure" (Wilbur, line 11) for the image of a "dazed starling" (Wilbur 16) "trapped in that very room" (Wilbur, line 17) where the speaker's daughter is writing (Wilbur 3).
Providing context can also be as complicated as specifying time, place, and audience:
Speaking to thousands of black Americans and white civil rights advocates in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., August 28, 1963, during the "March on Washington," Martin Luther King deliberately recalled Lincoln's struggle to free black slaves as he led his own struggle to free blacks from the slavery of segregation when he spoke the famous words, "I have a dream" (King).
Grammatical Context
Providing grammatical context depends upon whether a writer is quoting a whole sentence or part of a sentence. When quoting a whole sentence, the writer needs to use some variation of the formula "The writer says," "The speaker says," or "The narrator explains," followed by a comma and the sentence being quoted. When quoting a part of a sentence, the writer needs to provide whatever part of the sentence is missing from the quotation itself.
President George Bush's "drug czar" William Bennett begins his essay "Should Drugs Be Legalized?" (Reader's Digest, March 1990) by responding to short quotations from people who wished to legalize drugs. In doing so, he illustrates how to integrate single words, phrases, comparisons, predicates, and complete sentences.
Note: The "I" in the examples below refers to the author of the article, William Bennett. Each sentence is copied word for word from the source. The quotation marks appear as they do in the original, and were copied from page 90 of the article. A student using these quotations in a paper would format them differently, reworking the sentences to replace the pronoun I with Bennett's name.
Single Word
Phrase
Predicate
Comparison
Complete Sentence
Since I took command of the war on drugs, I have learned from former Secretary of State George Shultz that our concept of fighting drugs is "flawed."
Example of how a student might write a sentence using this information: Former Secretary of State George Shultz explained to his successor William Bennett that previous efforts at controlling and reducing the drug trade had been "flawed" (Bennett 90).
The only thing to do, he says, is to "make it possible for addicts to buy drugs at some regulated place."
Conservative commentator William F. Buckley, Jr., suggests I should be "fatalistic" about the flood of cocaine from South America and simply "let it in" (Bennett 90)
Syndicated columnist Mike Royko contends it would be easier to sweep junkies out of the gutters "than to fight a hopeless war" against the narcotics that send them there (Bennett 90).
Labeling our efforts "bankrupt," federal judge Robert W. Sweet opts for legalization, saying, "If our society can learn to stop using butter, it should be able to cut down on cocaine" (Bennett 90).
Using Quotations within an Analysis Paragraph: The Four C's
Quotations are a valuable tool for the writer as long as they are used in the right place and in the right way so that they flow smoothly within the rest of the essay's text. Claim, Context, Cite, Connect is a framework for building paragraphs using quotations in an analytical essay and gives writers some guidelines to follow when using quoted material.
Claim
The writer states the idea the quotation supports.
Context
The writer tells who said the quotation and under what circumstances, phrased so that the quotation fits smoothly into the text.
Cite
The writer copies the quotation word for word from the original source, only using ellipses (…) if words are left out in the middle of a quotation, not at the beginning or end. Also, if the quotation can be clarified by replacing a pronoun with a noun or if a slight phrasing change makes the quotation read more smoothly in context, then the writer may put any changed or added words in square brackets [ ].
Connect
The most important step is to explain how the quotation supports the claim. The writer assumes the reader does not understand how the quote applies to the claim. Unless the quotation restates the claim word for word, the writer must explain. In this explanation, the writer should use key words from the claim and from the quotation to connect the claim with the quotation in the reader's mind.
Example Paragraph
Labels in brackets have been added to the paragraph so that students can easily identify the claim, context, cite, and connect sections of the paragraph.
[CLAIM] Despite the romance of the human exploration of space, unmanned exploratory vehicles, like the Mars Lander, are a more realistic option for the exploration of space in face of the serious issues in sending humans that far from Earth. [CONTEXT] In an article for MacLean's written in 2010, various scientists, astronauts, and university professors discuss the problems people will face during the long journey to Mars. [CITE] Most people do not realize that astronauts travelling to Mars would not be able to see the stars because of the brightness of the sun (Lanau). This is similar to what happens when a person has been outside on a very bright day. Coming inside, the room may be very dark, making it difficult to see. The scientists also explained that the astronauts would not be able to see the Earth, which as they moved further away would shrink smaller and smaller. No one knows what impact this constant view of a black sky with a single bright object would have psychologically on the astronauts. There are also more serious dangers. "Microgravity, stress and radiation" all present hazards to the astronauts. Without a constant gravity (the astronauts would be in free-fall most of the flight), muscles and bones would atrophy, the immune system would be less effective, small wounds would take a long time to heal, and medications, exposed to the intense radiation of space, would be less effective (Lanau). [CONNECT] These and other issues are of deep concern to those wanting to extend humanity's reach into space. Many fans of science fiction have imagined blasting off into space like Tom Corbett, Space Cadet. The reality of space travel, however, is quite different. Astronauts will spend months with nothing to watch and very little to do.
Note: In the paragraph, these two sentences (This is similar to what happens when a person has been outside on a very bright day. Coming inside, the room may be very dark, making it difficult to see.) are not taken from Lanau but are comments by the student writer. Therefore, an internal citation for the first part of the paragraph is included, and then a running acknowledgement (The scientists also explained . . . ) is used to reintroduce material from the source.
Quotations within an Explication: Embedded Evidence
When writing an interpretive essay, the literary work is identified by title and author in the first sentence of the first body paragraph on that work. Within the paragraph, students should write their argument about the significance of the work embedding short quotations of key words and phrases into their argument as evidence in support of the argument. Long quotations should be used sparingly, if at all.
Example
"To His Coy Mistress" by Andrew Marvell argues against an extended courtship rooted in a pretense of shyness and modesty given the brevity of life and the certainty of death. The speaker in Andrew Marvell's "To His Coy Mistress" tells his love that he wishes he had all the time in the world to devote to his love for her, loving her from "ten years before the Flood" (Marvell, line 8) until the end of time and "the conversion of the Jews" (Marvell, line 10). He knows that she "deserve[s] this state," but he knows that time is short, for he can "hear / Time's wingèd chariot hurrying near" (Marvell 21-22), a reference to the Greek god of time. The speaker explains that he is willing to spend all the time necessary to woo her, claiming, if he had the time, he would spend "An hundred years" on her eyes (Marvell 13-14), "Two hundred to adore each breast" (Marvell 15), and "thirty thousand to the rest" (Marvell, line 16), but he explains that he can "hear / Time's wingèd chariot hurrying near" (Marvell 21-22). Time is too short.
This page is based on material developed by Dr. Brian Hale and Bill Stifler.