Quote Integration

Integrating Quotes Into Your Written Responses

 

The best proof that a work does what you say it does is to textual evidence: words, phrases, and sentences that you quote from the short story, novel, play, poem, or article you are writing about.

 

Using the poem, “Richard Cory”, for example, here are a number of guidelines for integrating quotes into your written responses:

 

Richard Corey

 

WHENEVER Richard Cory went down town,
We people on the pavement looked at him:
He was a gentleman from sole to crown,
Clean favored, and imperially slim.
And he was always quietly arrayed,	5
And he was always human when he talked;
But still he fluttered pulses when he said,
”Good-morning,” and he glittered when he walked.
And he was rich—yes, richer than a king,
And admirably schooled in every grace:	10
In fine, we thought that he was everything
To make us wish that we were in his place.
So on we worked, and waited for the light,
And went without the meat, and cursed the bread;
And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,	15
Went home and put a bullet through his head.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rules for Integrating Quotes:

 

1.        The shorter the better, a single word or phrase is best.  Try not to quote more than one sentence at a time, as long quotes detract from the flow of writing.

 

2.       Your writing style will improve if you integrate the quotes directly into the grammatical structure of your sentences, rather than writing your sentences and following them with quotes (don’t float the quote).

 

Weak (incorrect):             Richard Cory was polite.  “He as a gentleman from sole to crown.”

                                                (I might say next to this…Don’t Float the Quote!!!)

 

Better (correct):               Richard Cory was polite, “a gentleman from sole to crown.”

 

3.        You may alter the capitalization and end punctuation of a quote to make it conform to the needs of your sentence.

 

Weak:                                   Richard Cory, “Clean favoured, and imperially slim.” was a thorough gentleman.

 

Better:                                  Richard Cory, “clean favoured, and imperially slim” was a thorough gentleman.

 

4.       Work the quote comfortably into your own sentence structure.   Avoid making the quote the subject of a verb in a sentence.  (I always say…don’t talk at or about the quote.)

 

Weakest:                             “And he was always quietly arrayed,” this quote shows Richard Cory’s elegance.

Weak:                                   “And he was always quietly arrayed,” shows Richard Cory’s elegance.

Better:                                  Richard Cory, “always quietly arrayed,” was an elegant gentleman.

 

5.       Avoid having two quotes in a row.  Your own words or commentary should bridge the two quotes.  Don’t bump two sets of quotation marks against each other.

 

Weak:                   Richard Cory had every advantage.  “He was a gentleman from sole to crown.”  “And he

                                Was rich-yes, richer than a king.”

Better:                  Richard Cory had every advantage.  The townsfolk referred to him as “a gentleman from                              sole to crown.”  As well, they were impressed that “he was rich-yes, richer than a king.”

 

6.       A full sentence quote should appear, introduced by a colon, and the end of a complete sentence of your own construction.  (This is correct but not my favourite….I think it gets in the way of flow… I prefer the earlier styles.)

Example: 

The people of the town were envious of Richard Cory: “In fine, we thought that he was everything to make us wish that we were in his place.”

 

7.       Longer quotes, more than two lines of poetry or more than a sentence of prose, should be set off from the rest of your paragraph.  Single-space the quote and centre it without using quotation marks.  (Don’t do this style of quotation unless you are writing a 5+ page paper.)

Example: 

The townsfolk did not understand that Richard Cory was lonely.  They envied his wealth and were surprised and puzzled by his suicide:

                                So on we worked, and waited for the light,

And went without the meat, and cursed the bread,

And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,

Went home and put a bullet through his head.

Indeed, part of the mystery of Richard Cory’s suicide is that it happened on an otherwise uneventful night.

 

8.        Separate two lines of poetry running within your sentences with a slash (/) and preserve the capitalization of words at the beginning of the second line.

 

Example:

The townsfolk “worked, and waited for the light, / And went without meat, and cursed the bread.”

 

9.        If you omit words from a quote in order to keep it succinct, mark the omission by three periods, called ellipsis.  However, do not use ellipses at the beginnings or endings of your quotes.  It is understood that you are lifting passages from longer works.

Weak:                   It is obvious that Richard Cory was lonely.  When he “…went downtown…, “ the “…people…looked at him…” but clearly didn’t take the time to know him well.

Better:                  It is obvious that Richard Cory was lonely.  When he “went downtown,” the “people…looked at him” but clearly didn’t take the time to know him well.

 

10.    If, for clarity of sentence structure, you must alter a quote, place the alteration in square brackets.

 

Example: 

The townsfolk wished “that [they] were in his place.”