Integrating Sources

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Integrating Sources

• by Worth Weller

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TOC

• Why use sources?
• What makes a good quote?
• How long should a quote be?
• How to integrate quotes
• How to avoid dropped quotes
• How to shorten quotes
• Using block quotes
• A few notes on paragraphs
• A few words on grammar, punctuation and citing

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Why use sources?

• College papers are written in your own words.
• In fact, 66 to 75 percent of your paper needs to
  be your own views and thoughts.
• Quotes from sources are simply used to back up,
  prove, and illustrate your own thinking
• The reason you use sources is to show the reader
  that your opinions are informed by
• What you read
• And what others have said about your subject.

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What makes a good quote?

• When you are reading, you are looking for
  arguments that will support (or oppose) your
  own arguments
• You are looking for strong, powerful wording of
  articulately presented ideas.
• Stay away from dates and amounts
• Quote only exciting language, language that is
  controversial, or language that would lose its
  impact or clarity as a paraphrase.

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Examples
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How long should a quote be?

• Short!
• Readers dont like long quotes - they dont know
  why you are using them
• Quote just one sentence at a time
• Often half a quote is better than a full quote!

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Example
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How to integrate quotes

• Direct quotations should always have three parts
  
• Quote Material taken directly from the author
• Tag Material that explains the following or
  preceding is a quote
• Source Material that documents the source, such
  as page numbers

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Examples
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More examples
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How to avoid dropped quotes

• All quotes should have some form of tag
  information in the form of a subject and verb
  that comes before or after the quote
• In other words, quotes need to be integrated
  into a larger sentence of your own.

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Example
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How to shorten quotes

• Ellipses (space dot space dot space dot space)
  indicate that some unnecessary words have been
  left out of a quotation.
• When using ellipses, remember that
• when you quote just a WORD or SHORT PHRASE, no
  ellipsis is necessary
• you do not use an ellipsis to indicate that you
  have left something out of the BEGINNING of a
  sentence
• missing words from the END or somewhere in the
  MIDDLE of a sentence need to be indicated with an
  ellipsis

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Examples
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Using block quotes

• Quotes more than four lines long need to be set
  up as block quotes.
• Use them very sparingly
• Readers dont like them
• Profs think you are padding your paper
• They rob you of page length

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Example
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A few notes on paragraphs

• Never begin a paragraph with a quote - paragraphs
  begin with transitions and topic sentences.
• Never end a paragraph with a quote - robs you of
  page length
• Use the quote in the middle of your paragraph to
  illustrate and support your topic sentence
• Then reflect on how that quote proves your point,
  explain what the quote means or make some other
  comment.

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Example
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Some words on Grammar, Punctuation, and Citing

• Sometimes you have to change a word in a quote to
  make it fit the grammar of our whole sentence -
  show this with brackets.
• Commas always go inside the quote marks
  semi-colons, exclamation points and question
  marks are outside unless they are the authors
• Except where citing, periods go inside the quote
  marks.
• Use single quote marks to indicate quotes within
  quotes
• Parenthetical citations come at the very end.

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Examples
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Summary

• Quote sparingly - do your own writing
• Quote only the good stuff
• Use tag material to integrate the quote into a
  larger sentence
• Never begin a paragraph with a quote
• Never end a paragraph with a quote.