ChiefGrasshopperMaster808 Once again Before You Begin Read the instructional handout “The… Once again Before You Begin
Read the instructional handout “The Basic Exercise of a Quotation: Nonfiction” on the last several pages of this document, and then complete the above exercise.
The Basic Anatomy of a Quote: Nonfiction
Example
According to Sara Mendoza, professor of biology at Stanford, “Cloning humans may offer some benefits, but overall it could cause more problems” (10).
The speaker is Sara Mendoza.
Her credential is that she is a professor of biology at Stanford.
Her quote is, “Cloning humans may offer some benefits, but overall it could cause more problems.”
o Punctuation Notation: A comma is placed before the quote.
The original quote appears on page 10 of the cited source.
o Punctuation Notation: A period goes outside the parenthesis of the page
number.
Rule #01
Do not quote simply to quote or fill up your essay. A quote should be used only if it is striking or because the idea is too complicated to paraphrase.
Rule #02
All direct and indirect quotes need a name/attribution tag in the sentence. Readers should always know who is talking and who the speaker is. An indirect quote is another person’s idea put into your own words and sentence construction.
Direct Quote
A direct quote is word-for-word from the speaker.
According to Sara Mendoza, professor of biology at Stanford, “Cloning humans may offer some benefits, but overall it could cause more problems” (10).
Indirect Quote (better known as a paraphrase)
An indirect quote is another person’s idea put into your own words and sentence construction.
Sara Mendoza, professor of biology at Stanford, believes that since the potential drawbacks of human cloning outweigh possible benefits, it should not be done (10).
All speakers need to be fully identified the first time they are used, whether directly or indirectly quoted. Follow the Mendoza examples above. Once you identify a speaker by full name and credentials, you refer to that person by last name ever after. Do not use Mr. or Mrs. titles.
You can put the name tag at the beginning or end of the quotation. If there is a clause or two independent clauses, you can also put the name tag in the middle. Name tag verbs should be in the present tense: asks, says, argues.
Thoreau asks his readers, “Is a democracy, such as we know it, the last improvement possible in government?” (18).
“Is a democracy, such as we know it, the last improvement possible in government?” Thoreau asks his readers (18).
“Is a democracy, such as we know it,” Thoreau asks his readers, “the last improvement possible in government?” (18).
Rule #03
Use a colon when you introduce a quotation with a full sentence.
In his essay “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” Martin Luther King, Jr. makes a statement that has not lost its relevance: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere” (343).
Rule #04
When you use the word that to set up a quotation, do not use a comma.
While Mendoza believes cloning could help in some instances, she feels that “overall it could cause more problems” (10).
Rule #05
You must quote exactlyword for word and punctuation mark for punctuation mark. Either you quote exactly, or you rewrite completely (and cite the source). Even if the original source has a spelling error, you cannot change it, but you must let your readers know that it was not your mistake by using [sic].
“I beleive [sic] those cloning animals that are going extinct makes sense,” says bioethicist Kim Yamada in her 2010 online article “To Clone or Not to Clone.”
When you would like to use a quote but not the whole quote use the ellipsis. These three spaced periods tell your readers that you took out some information in the quote. However, the quote must remain grammatically correct and in context; you may not use the ellipsis to change the meaning of the quote. If you skip a whole sentence or more, add a fourth period to the ellipsis to signify this.
Original
Mendoza points out that “Cloning is a good idea for certain uses like saving endangered species, for organ replacement, and for the study of aging, but this knowledge could easily be misused” (10).
With ellipsis
Mendoza points out that “Cloning is a good idea for certain uses . . . , but this knowledge could easily be misused” (10).
Rule #06
Keep in mind that readers do not have the original source to look at, so if a word or term would be unclear to them, clarify it in the quote. Use brackets [ ] to insert a word or words to clarify a direct quote.
“Too often they [doctors] want to play God and do not think of the consequences,” believes bioethicist Arthur Caplan (15).
Rule #07
Use the abbreviation qtd. in to indicate that you are quoting from an indirect source. In other words, you are using someone else’s report of a conversation, statement, interview, letter, or whatever. The person speaking is not the writer of the source.
Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft, says, “I really had a lot of dreams when I was a kid, and I think a great deal of that grew out of the fact that I had a chance to read a lot” (qtd. in Brown 23).
Rule #08
If you want to quote something that has quotation marks in it, use the half quotes. “My favorite poem is ‘Stop All the Clocks’ by W.H. Auden,” Claire tells Miguel (13).
Rule #09
Website sources do not have page numbers. If you identify the speaker as the writer, there is no need for a citation.
“I beleive [sic] that cloning animals that are going extinct makes sense,” says bioethicist Kim Yamada in her 2010 online article “To Clone or Not to Clone.”
Rule #10
Quotes over four typed lines must be blocked (indent the whole quote half an inch, omit quotation marks, put the final period before the citation).
Example of a Block Quote
Sigmund Freud, in Moses and Monotheism, maintains that the effect of a traumatic event does not necessarily appear right after the accident, but may take several weeks or months to manifest. He makes the following argument:
It may happen that a man who has experienced some frightful accidenta railway collision, for instanceleaves the scene of the event apparently uninjured. In the course of the next few weeks, however, he develops a number of severe psychical and motor symptoms which can only be traced to his shock, the concussion or whatever else it was. (309)
Image transcription textImproving Quoting Skills I Directed Learning ActivityMm 81 Research 03 Essential Question What are theten rules for quoting non?ction material and how do I use them? Pu rpose Upon completion of this activity,students will know the ten basic rules of quoting non?ction material. This DLA should take approxi… Show more… Show more Arts & HumanitiesEnglish
