Grammar Stations: Research and Grammar Rule Review

copyright 2006 www.brainybetty.com ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Incorporating Quotes It is very important that you incorporate quotes into your writing in a way that is grammatically correct. Otherwise, you end up with disjointed thoughts that confuse your reader. 4/9/2019 copyright 2006 www.brainybetty.com ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Examples of Quote Integrating Gone Wrong In the following examples, students were attempting to integrate the following thought and quote: The poem is reminiscent of a teenager’s first day of school. “I walked into the building full of excitement.” Left the way it is now, the quote is floating and therefore not integrated into the student’s writing. Let’s look at some failed attempts to embed this quote. 4/9/2019 copyright 2006 www.brainybetty.com ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Examples of Quote Integrating Gone Wrong When the student says, “I walked into the building full of excitement,” it shows that the poem is reminiscent of a teenager’s first day of school. “It shows”? What is “it”? The poem? The author? The student? The poem is reminiscent of a teenager’s first day of school, “I walked into the building full of excitement.” You absolutely CANNOT simply stick a comma between the thought and quote. You have then created a comma splice. 4/9/2019

Examples of Quote Integrating Gone Wrong In the poem he “walked into the building full of excitement” this quote is the author reminiscing of a teenager’s first day of school. This individual gave it a good try, but then he used the word “quote.” In addition, this is a run-on sentences: there are two independent clauses with no punctuation in between (…excitement” this quote…) “I walked into the building full of excitement” explains that the poem is reminiscent of a teenager’s first day of school. The quote itself is not explaining anything. It is an example of why we know the poem is about the first day of school. 4/9/2019

Examples of Quote Integrating Correctly Using the same thought and quote, these two examples are grammatically correct: When the speaker states, “I walked into the building full of excitement,” the reader becomes aware that the poem is reminiscent of a teenager’s first day of school. The poem is reminiscent of a teenager’s first day of school as the speaker “walked into the building full of excitement.” 4/9/2019

Points to Remember Never use the word “it” when referring to the author or the speaker of the poem. Don’t be afraid to use brackets to add or change words into quotes so the sentence is grammatically correct. For example: The poem is reminiscent of a teenager’s first day of school as “[he] walked into the building full of excitement.” 4/9/2019