Integrating Quotations I.Q.

Integrating Quotations Gracefully This power point is designed to address the following course competencies: Document secondary sources in the MLA style and integrate them effectively. Understand and avoid all forms of plagiarism.

Integrating Quotations Gracefully A writer should integrate material from sources smoothly into his or her own words. Anyone can stick in a quotation, but it takes some skill to incorporate quotations, paraphrases, and other references into one’s own writing without awkward gaps and jerks.

Integrating Quotations Gracefully You should aim for a seamless texture as you move from your own analysis of your subject to the comments and ideas of others and back again to your own comments. There are techniques that can help you achieve a stylistic smoothness as you integrate source materials into your own writing.

Is it acceptable to commit a hit-and-run with your vehicle? Just as it is not acceptable to hit a child, animal, or object and drive away, it is not acceptable to just dump a quote in the middle of your writing. “To be, or not to be, that is the question.” See that. That was a hit-and-run quote. It is not acceptable. It must be part of a larger, complete sentence, that has a signal phrase. (See the power point, “Signal Phrases.”)

Integrate your quotations! I.Q. As Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, was fond of saying in his most troubled times, Prince Harry of Wales, too, often wonders after a scandalous photo of him has been snapped by the paparazzi: “To be, or not to be, that is the question.” See that. That was NOT a hit-and-run quote. It is part of a larger, complete sentence, that has a signal phrase. (See the power point, “Signal Phrases.”)

So now what? In the following examples, the writer gracefully integrates his own words with the quoted words from a secondary source by Anastasia Toufexis entitled, “Love: The Right Chemistry.” Toufexis’s original essay presents a neurochemical perspective on love. The writer is using Anastasia Toufexis as the authority to support his points about love.

Here are eight sample patterns of integration. (Notice the parenthetical citation shows the page number from which each quotation came.) Where can the quoted words appear in a larger sentence?

1. At the beginning... “Goofy grins and sweaty palms” are one physiological indication that we may be in love (Toufexis 166).

2. In the middle… In her essay, Toufexis gives credit to a specific chemical, oxytocin, for “enhancing pleasure” which may certainly explain the physiological reaction in mating (167). (Note that because the author is mentioned in the sentence, only the page number is needed in the parenthetical/in-text citation.)

3. At the end… Toufexis describes the effects of love as “goofy grins and sweaty palms” (166).

4. Divided by your own words… “Lovers often claim that they feel as if they are being swept away,” and research suggests that they are indeed “literally flooded by chemicals” (Toufexis 166). (Note how smooth this move is! It incorporates the quote from Toufexis linked by the writer’s own words. Nice!)

5. Introduced with a colon: As Toufexis notes, the criteria for a love match is learned in childhood and we put it all together as adults: “All the information gathered while growing up is imprinted in the brain’s circuitry by adolescence. Partners never meet each and every requirement, but a significant number of matches can light up the wires” (168). (Note that the writing up to the colon must be a complete sentence AND the quoted material after the colon must also be in complete sentences.)

6. Introduced with a comma, Love produces wonderful feelings, and as anthropologist Helen Fisher notes, “that is one reason why it feels so horrible when we’re abandoned or a lover dies” (qtd. in Toufexis 167). Note that before the comma, the writing is not in a complete sentence. The signal phrase plus the quoted piece equal a complete sentence. Also, who is Helen Fisher? The original essay was by Toufexis. However, Toufexis quoted Fisher in her piece. To use Fisher, from the Toufexis essay, the in-text citation will be an abbreviated form for “quoted in Toufexis.”)

7. Introduced with that… With true love, she argues that “age is not vital” (Toufexis167). Again, note that before the word, “that,” the writing is not in a complete sentence. The signal phrase plus “that” plus the quoted piece equal a complete sentence. SP + that + quoted piece = complete sentence

8. Introduced using As…argues or As…suggests… or As “expert” verb… Love and nature seem to act in tandem, for as psychobiologist Anthony Walsh suggests, “nature has wired us for one special person” (qtd. in Toufexis 167). Again, the essayist’s own writing before the name of the expert plus the verb plus the quoted piece = a complete sentence.