Academic Writing

 Present tense George goes into town with most of the other ranch workers. NOT: George went into town with most of the other ranch workers.  Third person (he, she, they, names)  Proper citation format Quotation Marks (Author’s last name page #).

 A citation is where you give credit to author and page number in parenthesis. Citations are typically placed at the end of the sentence where a quote/excerpt is used.  Look closely at the following examples for proper placement and punctuation.  Ex: Lennie is often compared to an animal. His hand is a “paw” and he drinks with “long gulps, snorting into the water like a horse” (3).

 --Typically, an author name is needed in the parenthesis, but because all analysis is based around the same author in the paragraph, no author is needed.  --Notice how some of the sentence is in my own words, and some are quoted directly from the text. Mature writers will blend the quote/excerpt smoothly into the sentence instead of leaving it as its own sentence.

NOT on YOUR sheet! When a student wants to use dialgue as part of their citation, he/she needs to use triple quotations.  Clearly Candy is realistic when he states, “ ‘ Nobody’d listen to us’” (81).

 If you want to insert dialogue from multiple people in your writing, use the single quote marks to move the reader in and out. Lennie tries to explain to Curley’s wife that “ ‘ Curley got his hand caught in a machine…’ Curley’s wife laughed, ‘O.K., Machine. I’ll talk to you later’” (80).

  1. “George’s hand remained outstretched imperiously. Slowly, like a terrier who doesn’t want to bring a ball to its master, Lennie approached, drew back, approached again” (9).   2. Lennie acts “like a terrier who doesn’t want to bring a ball back to his master” when George asks him to hand over the mouse (9).

  3. George tells Lennie the story of his and Lennie’s dream: “’Someday—we’re gonna get the jack together and we’re gonna have a little house and a couple of acres an’ a cow and some pigs’” (14).  Note: Notice how a colon is used to join the two complete sentences as one. This is another acceptable quote format.

Do next section. Then we will check it.

  4. Steinbeck describes Crooks as someone who is “a proud, aloof man” (67).   5. George feels comfortable talking to Slim because he is “quiet and receptive” (39).   6. Lennie knows that he is to “hide in the brush” if he gets in trouble (15).

  7. George predicts that Curley’s wife is “gonna make a mess” (51).   8. Candy expresses regret when he says, “’I ought to of shot that dog myself, George. I shouldn’t ought to of let no stranger shoot my dog’” (61).   9. Lennie shows his strength when he took Curley’s hand in his fist and “the next minute Curley was flopping like a fish on a line” (63).

 10. Choose one of the above excerpts and rewrite so the quoted material is in the beginning or middle of the sentence.  You may be asked to write your rewrite on the board for others to see.