Because a source cannot reveal its meaning or function by itself, you must make the connection between a source and your own ideas. A signal phrase can show readers how a quotation supports or challenges a point you are making.
Efforts by the music industry to stop Internet file sharing have been unsuccessful and, worse, divisive. Industry analysts share this view. Salon’s Scott Rosenberg, for example, writes that the only thing the music industry’s “legal strategy has accomplished is to radicalize the community of online music fans and accelerate the process of technological change” (2).
Readers should not have to guess why a quotation appears in your paper. If you use another writer’s words, you must explain how they contribute to your point. It’s a good idea to embed a quotation— especially a long one—between sentences of your own. In addition to introducing it with a signal phrase, follow it with interpretive comments that link the quotation to your paper’s argument.
QUOTATION WITH INSUFFICIENT CONTEXT
The difference, Lane argues, between these old methods of data gathering and electronic surveillance involves quantity:
Technology makes it possible for employers to gather enormous amounts of data about employees, often far beyond what is necessary to satisfy safety or productivity concerns. And the trends that drive technology—faster, smaller, cheaper—make it possible for larger and larger numbers of employers to gather ever-greater amounts of personal data. (3-4)
QUOTATION WITH EFFECTIVE CONTEXT
The difference, Lane argues, between these old methods of data gathering and electronic surveillance involves quantity:
Technology makes it possible for employers to gather enormous amounts of data about employees, often far beyond what is necessary to satisfy safety or productivity concerns. And the trends that drive technology—faster, smaller, cheaper—make it possible for larger and larger numbers of employers to gather ever-greater amounts of personal data. (3-4)
Lane points out that employers can collect data whenever employees use their computers—for example, when they send e-mail, surf the Web, or even arrive at or depart from their workstations.
Exercise: Integrating sources in MLA papers 1
Exercise: Integrating sources in MLA papers 2
Exercise: Integrating sources in MLA papers 3
Exercise: Integrating sources in MLA papers 4
signal phrase A phrase that cues and introduces the use of source material, usually by naming the author of the material.