1. Embedding Quotations …because it’s YOUR job!

2. What is embedding? Embedding involves selecting only the most important words in your text evidence. In other words, you will never use an entire sentence from the text verbatim (that means word-for- word). The embedded text is the essential part of a quote that will help you to advance your point and support your argument. You are doing the work of “sifting through” unnecessary components of text evidence to offer your audience ONLY WHAT IS NEEDED.

3. What does embedding look like? Combine a paraphrase with a quotation: Not embedded: Tania Modleski suggests that “if television is considered by some to be a vast wasteland, soap operas are thought to be the least nourishing spot in the desert.” Embedded: In her critique of soap operas, Tania Modleski argues that some view television as “a vast wasteland” and soap operas as “the least nourishing spot in the desert.”

4. Do not use a full-sentence quotation. Your own commentary or ideas should support and elaborate the quotation. Not embedded: Richard Cory had everything going for him. “He was a gentleman from sole to crown.” “And he was rich—yes, richer than a king.” Embedded: Richard Cory had everything going for him. Not only was he a “gentleman from sole to crown,” but he was “richer than a king.”