1. How to Integrate Quotes in Literary Analysis
A Simple Guide

2. HOW MUCH?
Your essay is your argument. Too many quotations can overpower your voice.
Use quotations sparingly.

3. POWER
Quote only words, sentences, or passages that are powerful.

4. INTRODUCE A QUOTATION
Never drop a quotation in your paper. You must use your own words to introduce a quotation.
When you are using brief quotations, you must integrate them—
work them smoothly into your sentences
show their relevance to your ideas.
NOT INTEGRATED: Brinker becomes disillusioned with the war, and Ralph becomes disillusioned with the glory of being chief. “He found himself understanding the wearisomness of this life, where every path was an improvisation and a considerable part of one’s walking life was spent watching one’s feet” (76).
INTEGRATED: In the same way that Brinker becomes disillusioned with the war, Ralph begins to feel a sense of disillusionment toward the glory of being chief. Golding’s narrator begins to allude to Ralph’s waning enjoyment of being the leader on the island when he states, “he found himself understanding the wearisomness of this life, where every path was an improvisation and a considerable part of one’s walking life was spent watching one’s feet” (76).

5. Methods for Incorporating Brief Quotations
Final Position
For several reasons, “all of them, all except Phineas, constructed at infinite cost to themselves these Maginot Lines against an enemy they thought they saw across the frontier”.
Beginning Position
“Ralph wept for the end of innocence, the darkness of man’s heart, and the fall through the air of the true, wise friend called Piggy,” declares Golding’s narrator at the end of his novel.
Middle Position
In the same way William Golding’s novel has been considered a “body of work that speaks to the tragedy of the human condition,” John Knowles’ A Separate Peace can be considered a work of literature that shines a light into the dark recesses of the human heart.

6. Be Strong
In order to make your own writing flow as smoothly as possible, it is usually best to use only an effective part of the quotation as part of your own sentences.
Do not rely on quotations to do the work for you.
You must always follow a quotation or paraphrase with commentary.
Never end a paragraph with a quotation.

7. Ellipses
When omitting words from within a single sentence, use only three ellipsis dots (. . . ). Three point ellipses have single typed spaces before and after each of the three dots:
Faulty: “water…had”
Correct: “water had.”

8. Brackets
Use brackets to specify ambiguous pronouns within a quotation.
Example: “ As revealed to me [Oedipus] by the Delphi oracle” (15).

9. Make Changes
Quotations should fit into your argument. If punctuation, pronouns, or verb tenses do not flow with your own words, paraphrase or make minor changes to the quotation, surrounding them with brackets

10. Integrating Quotes: Pattern # 1
1. An introducing clause plus the quotation:
Gatsby is not to be regarded as a personal failure because "Gatsby turned out all right at the end" (176), according to Nick.
This is a complex sentence.
Because is a subordinate conjunction.

11. Pattern # 2
2. An assertion of your own and a colon plus the quotation:
Fitzgerald gives Nick a muted tribute to the hero: "Gatsby turned out all right at the end" (176).
This works best if your quotation is a complete clause

12. Pattern # 3
3. An assertion of your own with quoted material worked in:
For Nick, who remarks that Gatsby "turned out all right" (176), the hero deserves respect but perhaps does not inspire great admiration.
This works best when you pull only power words from the quotation.

13. Model Commentary Taken from A Writer’s Model: “A Locust in the Garden”
The story alludes again and again to the sheltering comfort of the garden. The man tries to maintain an illusion that nothing serious has happened to him, that in time he will “feel as if he had always been like that” (397). The garden is his refuge against reality.