Thanks to Nancy Steele and Jeff Peterson for creating this sheet!

Embedding Quotations

---Provide context for the quotation

---Embed the quotation in the idea or point that the q illustrates (in other words, don’t simply restate what the q says)

---Add a sentence following the q that is more specific—that further explains the significance of the q (but, if you can, without saying “this quotation shows”)

Sample:   

The residents don’t know whether Boori Ma’s claims of having lived a luxurious life are truth or fiction.  Mr. Chatterjee’s analogy, equating her stories with her having a mouth “full of ashes” (72), conveys both possibilities. On the one hand, the image of remnants or residue suggests that Boori Ma must have once had possessions capable of being destroyed.  The image also suggests, however, that Boori Ma’s tales are flimsy, insubstantial. Like the texture of ashes, they seem to be ungrounded in reality.

Sample with "downshifting" illustrated:

The residents don’t know whether Boori Ma’s claims of having lived a luxurious life are truth or fiction. 

• Mr. Chatterjee’s analogy, equating her stories with her having a mouth “full of ashes” (72), conveys both possibilites.  
• On the one hand, the image of remnants or residue suggests that Boori Ma must have once had possessions capable of being destroyed. 
• The image also suggests, however, that Boori Ma’s tales are flimsy, insubstantial. Like the texture of ashes, they seem to be ungrounded in reality.

As Dr. Peterson says, “unless you’re using parenthetical citation form, you should always place periods and commas inside quotation marks.”

“Whenever you cite page numbers in parentheses,” he counsels, “you should place the period or comma outside the quotation itself, right after the parenthesis—as in this sentence” (45).