If you’ve ever had a professor ask you to “use quotes” or quote other texts in your writing before, you know that it’s no easy task. It can feel awkward sometimes to determine what parts of the text are worth quoting, as well as how to directly quote in your writing without sounding too formulaic or repetitive. Keep reading for some strategies on effectively using direct quotations in your next writing project!
Why do I need to know how to directly quote?
If you’ve seen our blog post on “Quoting Directly,” you know that using direct quotations (or “quotes”) in our writing can be useful for a variety of reasons. By quoting other credible, relevant sources in our own writing projects, we can provide more convincing evidence and reasoning for our own ideas. Direct quotations are a type of support we can provide for our own arguments and claims, as it demonstrates to our readers that other writers agree with what we have to say.
What are different ways to directly quote in my writing so that I don’t sound repetitive?
A common way to integrate “quotes” in our writing is with the use of a signal phrase, which is a short phrase that indicates to readers that the writer is about to introduce another source. For example, we often use the phrase “According to” as a common signal phrase for introducing quotations. However, if we were to use “According to” for every single quotation in our essays, our writing would start to sound awfully repetitive and potentially boring or uninteresting.
So, here are some different approaches you can take for integrating direct quotations to have more variety and style in your writing!
1. Use a signal phrase to introduce the quotation
The two most commonly used signal phrases only require a couple of words, primarily a verb and the author’s name:
- The introductory phrase: “According to (author’s name and/or title of source),”. e.g., “According to Ahmed,” or “According to Ulmer in Internet Invention,”.
- List the author’s name and a ‘says’-style verb. e.g., “Ahmed asserts,” or “Ulmer discusses,”. Some ‘says’ verbs include:
- States
- Claims
- Argues
- Describes
- Emphasizes
After a signal phrase, you can quote from the text directly. Here are some important reminders to keep in mind whenever you directly quote another source in your own writing:
- Use quotation marks “ “ and copy the passage exactly as it appears in the original text. If there is a grammatical or spelling error in the original source, you can use [sic] to cue to your reader that you did not make the mistake and are intentionally quoting the source material (for more on using [sic] in direct quotations, see our post on Quoting Directly).
- Try not to quote more than 3-4 lines of text, especially in shorter papers (anything under 10 pages). Direct quotations that span more than 4 lines of text require special formatting called block quotation formatting. Ideally, quotations should be about 1-3 lines long, or can even just be specific key words and short excerpts/phrases integrated into your own sentence structure! For more on block quotation formatting, though, check out Purdue OWL’s guides on long quotations:
Note: You can also use a signal phrase after the direct quotation for more variety in your sentence structure and style. You’d follow the same rules, except the quotation would come first, followed by your ‘says’ verb and the author.
It is usually better to lead with the author’s name and a ‘says’ verb because this introduces where the quotation is coming from (ensuring your reader is not confused) and is written in active voice, which is more direct and concise.
Example
According to Melissa Dahl, “[Cringe is] the intense visceral reaction produced by an awkward moment, an unpleasant kind of self-recognition where you suddenly see yourself through someone else’s eyes. It’s a forced moment of self-awareness, and it usually makes you cognizant of the disappointing fact that you aren’t measuring up to your own self-concept” (Wynn).
While this is a direct quotation attributed to author Melissa Dahl, the in-text citation is credited to (Wynn) because the writer found this quotation in an original source published by Natalie Wynn. If you directly quote an author or writer whose work is quoted by another source, you cite the source that “houses” the passage. In other words, you cite the author who introduced you to the work. You can still credit the original author by introducing them in your signal phrase, as shown in the example above, but make sure your in-text citation credits the source you found the passage in.
2. Summarize the main ideas of the quotation to create a framework for the quotation, then use a colon to present the quotation.
For this method, you would provide a concise overview of the main ideas from the passage you wish to quote as a way of contextualizing what the source is about. This provides a helpful framework for the reader to understand the purpose and meaning of your quote better.
Example
In Rebecca Solnit’s Wanderlust: A History of Walking, she raises several theoretical and philosophical viewpoints concerning both the act of walking, or flânerie, and
the walker, or flâneur. On escapism, Solnit posits: “In the city, one is alone because the world is made up of strangers, and to be a stranger surrounded by strangers,
to walk along silently bearing one’s secrets and imagining those of the people one passes, is among the starkest of luxuries” (23).
3. Blend a shorter quotation into your own sentence structure
This is the best method to use if you have only a short passage, some key words, or a specific phrase you want to quote in your writing. For this method, you want
to build your own original sentence that leads up to the key ideas in your short quotation to blend it together as one cohesive sentence.
Example
Within a participatory culture, individuals are often gathered together as a community due to shared interest networks, like video games, in which “members believe that their contributions matter” and there is “some type of informal mentorship whereby what is known by the most experienced is passed along to novices” (Jenkins 7).
Practice in the Writing Center
For more support and guidance on directly quoting, make an appointment with us here at the Writing Center! We can help you integrate “quotes” into your writing projects effectively and with style so that your support is interesting and convincing to readers.
For further reading, check out these resources from the Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) International Association:
- Integrate Quotations in Writing, by Carla Mannix (2017)
- List of Reporting Verbs, from University of Technology Sydney
***Adapted from TESOL International Association Handout “Integrate Quotations in Writing” by Carla Mannix, Nov. 2017