Here are some general guidelines for integrating source materials into your writing.
Incorporating quotations
Quotations from respected authorities can help establish your credibility and show that you are considering various perspectives. However, because your essay is primarily your own work, limit your use of quotations.
BRIEF QUOTATIONS
Short quotations should run in with your text, enclosed by quotation marks (43a).
In Miss Eckhart, Welty recognizes a character who shares with her “the love of her art and the love of giving it, the desire to give it until there is no more left” (10).
LONG QUOTATIONS
If you are following the style of the Modern Language Association (MLA), set off a prose quotation longer than four lines. If you are following the style of the American Psychological Association (APA), set off a quotation of more than forty words or more than one paragraph. If you are following Chicago style, set off a quotation of more than one hundred words or more than one paragraph. Begin such a quotation on a new line. For MLA style, indent every line one inch; for APA style, five to seven spaces; for Chicago style, indent the text or use a smaller font (check your instructor’s preference). Quotation marks are unnecessary. Introduce long quotations with a signal phrase or a sentence followed by a colon.
The following long quotation follows MLA style:
A good seating arrangement can prevent problems; however, withitness, as defined by Woolfolk, works even better:
Withitness is the ability to communicate to students that you are aware of what is happening in the classroom, that you “don’t miss anything.” With-it teachers seem to have “eyes in the back of their heads.” They avoid becoming too absorbed with a few students, since this allows the rest of the class to wander. (359)
This technique works, however, only if students actually believe that their teacher will know everything that goes on.
INTEGRATING QUOTATIONS SMOOTHLY INTO YOUR TEXT
Carefully integrate quotations into your text so that they flow smoothly and clearly into the surrounding sentences. Use a signal phrase or verb, such as those identified in the following examples and listed below.
As Eudora Welty notes, “learning stamps you with its moments. Childhood’s learning,” she continues, “is made up of moments. It isn’t steady. It’s a pulse” (9).
In her essay, Haraway strongly opposes those who condemn technology outright, arguing that we must not indulge in a “demonology of technology” (181).
Notice that the examples alert readers to the quotations by using signal phrases that include the author’s name. When you cite a quotation in this way, you need put only the page number in parentheses.
SIGNAL VERBS
acknowledges, advises, agrees, allows, answers, asserts, believes, charges, claims, concludes, concurs, confirms, criticizes, declares, describes, disagrees, discusses, disputes, emphasizes, expresses, interprets, lists, objects, observes, offers, opposes, remarks, replies, reports, responds, reveals, says, states, suggests, thinks, writes
BRACKETS AND ELLIPSES
In direct quotations, enclose in brackets any words you change or add, and indicate any deletions with ellipsis points (44f).
“There is something wrong in the [Three Mile Island] area,” one farmer told the Nuclear Regulatory Commission after the plant accident (“Legacy” 33).
Economist John Kenneth Galbraith has pointed out that “large corporations cannot afford to compete with one another…. In a truly competitive market someone loses” (qtd. in Key 17).
Incorporating paraphrases and summaries
Introduce paraphrases and summaries clearly, usually with a signal phrase that includes the author of the source, as the highlighted words in this example indicate.
Professor of linguistics Deborah Tannen says that she offers her book That’s Not What I Meant! to “women and men everywhere who are trying their best to talk to each other” (19). Tannen goes on to illustrate how communication between women and men breaks down and then to suggest that a full awareness of “genderlects” can improve relationships (297).