TIPS ON QUOTING Quotes should be integrated with your own words, to produce a smooth reading. Quotes are the evidence for your argument, and should be picked and used with great thought.

TIPS ON QUOTING Tip #1 Avoid Dropped Quotes Tip #2 Sandwich Your Quotes Tip #3 Keep Quotes Concise

#1: Avoid Dropped Quotes Weak: Wiesel wrote as a witness to the atrocities of the Holocaust. I believed that, having survived by chance, I was duty bound to give meaning to my survival (paragraph 7). Weak: Some writers write to understand and some write to remember. Didion writes in her notebook to remember her own memories and perceptions. Why did I write it down? In order to remember of course (80). Wiesel writes to understand. I write to understand as much as to be understood (paragraph 13).

#2: Sandwich your quotes Strong: Wiesel wrote as a witness to the atrocities of the Holocaust. In his essay, Wiesel expresses the unfathomable conflict in surviving. He writes, I believed that, having survived by chance, I was duty bound to give meaning to my survival (paragraph 7). Wiesel had a responsibility to tell the painful story of his experience, because he had survived when others had not.

#2: Sandwich your quotes In Superman and Me Alexie talks a lot about how growing up Native American affected his education. On page 111 Alexie writes, But he is an Indian boy living on the reservation and is simply an oddity. He is referring to himself and all other Native Americans who have felt uncomfortable being intelligent.

#2: Sandwich your quotes In contrast, Joan Didion writes mainly for herself and her own sake in her story, On Keeping a Notebook. She may have a target audience in mind, but it isnt clearly shown. She writes, It is a good idea, then, to keep in touch, and I suppose that keeping to touch is what notebooks are all about. And we are all on our own when it comes to keeping those lines open to ourselves: your notebook will never help me, nor mine you (page 7, paragraph 16). In this quote she is stating her notebook, her story, is only for her. It really isnt meant to inspire or affect others.

#3: Keep Quotes Concise Use only the very best part of the text to support your argument Take out any fluff Use ellipses ( … ) to remove unnecessary parts of a quote

#3: Keep Quotes Concise Original: He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance (Faulkner, paragraph 3). Modified: He is immortal…because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance (Faulkner, paragraph 3).

Check out my wiki!