A QUICK REVIEW FOR CITING TEXT:
MOST IMPORTANT: quotes cannot stand alone! They need to be integrated (that is, made to fit into the context of your language/your sentence). There are several ways to do this:
1. Signal Sentence -- This is the most basic, least sophisticated way to use quotes.
Ernest Hemingway describes the old man’s reaction to the first sharks in way that suggests he is a Christ figure: “...it is just a noise such as a man might make, involuntarily, feeling the nail go through his hands and into the wood” (107).
Note: Use the colon after the sentence prior to the quote. End punctuation goes after the parenthetical citation.
2. Signal Phrase -- This is more sophisticated.
Ernest Hemingway describes the old man’s reaction to the first sharks in way that suggests he is a Christ figure. The narrator tells us, “...it is just a noise such as a man might make, involuntarily, feeling the nail go through his hands and into the wood” (107).
Note: The signal phrase (the narrator tells us) is usually followed by a comma.
3. Summary and Blend -- This is the most sophisticated, most integrated, and generally the smoothest way to incorporate quotes.
Ernest Hemingway describes the old man’s reaction to the first sharks in way that suggests he is a Christ figure by describing the noise Santiago makes as one “a man might make, involuntarily, feeling the nail go through his hands and into the wood” (107).
Note: Smaller sections of the quote can be blended into your own words.
**Punctuation, capitalization, pronouns and tense: Quotes should always seamlessly blend in, so that the punctuation, capitalization, pronoun use, and verb tenses would be logical even if the quotation marks weren’t there. For example, if you wanted to blend the following quote, you’d have to make some adjustments to it.
Example:
“Fishing kills me exactly as it keeps me alive. The boy keeps me alive, he thought. I must not deceive myself too much.” (106)
Santiago thinks about the paradox of the fact that “fishing kills [him] exactly as it keeps [him] alive” (Hemingway 106).
Note: Pronouns and verbs can be adjusted slightly and put in brackets to indicate the change.