Our goal: To learn how to integrate supporting quotes into your essays so that the quotes flow smoothly out of your own words. That way, the quotes are given a context, they become part of your argument, and they do not distract the reader from your ideas.

Another example of using lead ins. Do not leave your quotes "naked." Make sure they are clearly connected to the argument you are trying to make. NO: After June's humiliating piano recital, Waverly adds insult to injury. "You aren't a genius like me" (Tan 151).

YES: After June's humiliating piano recital, Waverly adds insult to injury by declaring, "You aren't a genius like me" (Tan 151).

Ex.: When Lena shows Ying-Ying around her new house, Ying-Ying complains that "the slant of the floor makes her feel as if she is ‘running down’" (Tan 163).

If there is a quote within the quote you are using, then use single quotation marks to set off the inner quote.

 

Ex.: Lady Macbeth calls on supernatural powers so that she can assist in Duncan's murder:

. . . Come you spirits That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full Of direst cruelty. Make thick my blood.Stop up th'access and passage to remorse,That no compunctious visitings of natureShake my fell purpose . . . . (Macbeth 1.5.47-53)

Lady Macbeth thus reveals the all-consuming nature of her ambition: she is even willing to give up her identity as a woman to get what she wants. (And the paper goes on from there.)

When your quote is longer than four lines, "block it off" from the rest of your paragraph.

This is the quote analysis connecting the quote to your argument.

An example paragraph integrating quotes….

Courtesy the Odegaard Writing & Research Center http://www.depts.washington.edu/owrc Adapted from UW Expository Writing Program handout. Quotation Sandwich image courtesy Edward Chang