Quoting Effectively

Writing Studies scholar Joseph Harris says that one of the main mistakes developing writers make when they cite sources is that they fall into a kind of "ventriloquism."  The space between their voice and the voice of whatever they're quoting disappears, and they let the source speak for them.  At worst, the paper becomes an undifferentiated pastiche of source material, and any point the writer might be trying to make about the sources becomes invisible.  

At best, it becomes a graceful report on other people's work.

Harris uses advice about this problem to frame the larger project of his book, called Rewriting: How to Do Things with Texts.  He writes: 

I’d argue that this interplay of ideas defines academic writing—that whatever else they may do, intellectuals almost always write in response to the work of others.[...]But to respond is to do more than to recite or ventriloquize; we expect a respondent to add something to what is being talked about. The question for an academic writer, then, is how to come up with this something else, to add to what has already been said.  (Harris 2)

This is a really compelling vision of what writers do -- developing new ideas by confronting and reimagining what's been said before.  

But how do you manage this kind of confrontation at the line level -- when push comes to shove with the words on the page?  

"Dropping" Quotes:  Don't Do This

What Harris is talking about here is directly connected to the main problem we see our students having with quotation:  what people sometimes call "dropping" quotes.  If you drop a quote, you insert it without warning into your text.  Passages from sources aren't simple quantities of raw knowledge or information to be accepted as so many pounds of truth, so that all you need to do is present it in order to find and report "the answer."  

They're the materials with which you build your own new ideas.  

So you need to make sure the reader understands what you're doing with them.  That's what we think so many developing writers have trouble doing and why they so often "drop" quotes.

Here's what we mean.  The passage below is built around a reference to Ezekiel Emanuel's much discussed 2014 Atlantic Magazine article called "Why I Wish to Die at 75": 

Nobody wants to die early:  it’s natural to want to get everything you can out of life.  We shouldn’t always assume, however, that more is better where age is concerned.  “But here is a simple truth that many of us seem to resist: living too long is also a loss. It renders many of us, if not disabled, then faltering and declining, a state that may not be worse than death but is nonetheless deprived.” “I reject this aspiration. I think this manic desperation to endlessly extend life is misguided and potentially destructive. For many reasons, 75 is a pretty good age to aim to stop.”

If it seems to you hard to understand what the writer is driving at here, as well as who they're quoting and why, we agree.  Does the writer agree with the text they're quoting, or is it supposed to be an example of something they don't like -- and if so, what?  What kind of a text is it, and who's the person who wrote it?  What's the discussion around each quoted passage in the original text, and what's the relation between the two quoted passages, which run so awkwardly into one another here?

Our Advice

We'd recommend two simple main rules to prevent these kinds of really fundamental confusions:

1. Always set up quotations with “signal phrases.”  

Let readers know with a quotation is coming, who’s speaking, why they should listen, and what sense they should make of it.  Use some explicit prompt when you do this, like "As medical ethicist Ezekiel Emanuel points out," or "According to noted medical ethicist Ezekiel Emanuel."  (See below for more examples!)

2. Always quote purposefully and economically.  

Choose only what’s necessary to your purpose, which should be clear to the reader, and use editorial tools – especially brackets and ellipses – to present the information as effectively as you can. 

This is Better

If we were going to rewrite the passage above, we'd do something like this:

Nobody wants to die early:  it’s natural to want to get everything you can out of life.  We shouldn’t always assume, however, that more is better where age is concerned.  Ezekiel Emanuel, a well-known oncologist and medical ethicist who served as a health policy advisor in the Obama administration, argues against what he calls an emerging “cultural type,” the “American immortal,” in a controversial 2014 Atlantic article.  Emanuel pronounces, “here is a simple truth that many of us seem to resist: living too long is also a loss. It renders many of us, if not disabled, then faltering and declining, a state that may not be worse than death but is nonetheless deprived.” Announcing in the title of his article that he’s chosen 75 as his own target for no longer accepting medical care, Emanuel is emphatic about his decision: “I think this manic desperation to endlessly extend life is misguided and potentially destructive. For many reasons, 75 is a pretty good age to aim to stop.”

We think this passage is far more coherent than the first, mainly because it gives signals to the reader about who will be speaking to them in a quotation and what sense they should make of it.  Indeed, the signal phrases are the only thing that's been changed in this piece.  But they guide your attention and make the relationship of the author's ideas to Emanuel's ideas clear.

Sentence Models For Quoting

There are many ways to write signal phrases and to integrate quotations into your own text.  Here are a few options:

1. A simple sentence prompt:

As Emanuel points out, “American immortals may live longer than their parents, but they are likely to be more incapacitated” (Emanuel).

According to Emanuel, “American immortals may live longer than their parents, but they are likely to be more incapacitated” (Emanuel).

Emanuel writes:  “American immortals may live longer than their parents, but they are likely to be more incapacitated” (Emanuel).

2. Words or phrases integrated directly into a sentence:

Ezekiel Emanuel has become well-known for his objection to the “manic desperation” to extend one’s life that he says is the opposite of “liv[ing] a complete life” (Emanuel).

3. A content-bound sentence with a colon:

Critics likely doubt his commitment, but Emanuel seems clear about his intentions for himself:  “Dying at 75 will not be a tragedy” (Emanuel).

4. A block quotation:

Emanuel is clear about his intentions for himself:  

By the time I reach 75, I will have lived a complete life. I will have loved and been loved. My children will be grown and in the midst of their own rich lives. I will have seen my grandchildren born and beginning their lives. I will have pursued my life’s projects and made whatever contributions, important or not, I am going to make….Dying at 75 will not be a tragedy. Indeed, I plan to have my memorial service before I die.  (Emanuel)

As he makes clear, we do not need to thing about death as a “tragedy” – in fact, he seems to regard it as the celebration of a life well-lived.

Two things we might note about block quotations:  first, you don't need quotation marks.  The reader will understand that this is quoted language from its format -- the fact that it's indented as a block.  Second, you should always follow up a block quotation with an at least brief discussion of its connection to your idea.  Remember that you'll have given your paper over to someone else's voice for an extended period; you need afterward to take it back and do the talking. 

Active Signal Phrase Verbs

When you quote or paraphrase another writer’s work, don’t be content with neutral verbs like “says”:  recognize that we have a whole set of verbs that not only tell readers that a quote is coming, but also describe the spirit in which this writer makes the comment.  So the writer isn’t just saying something; they’re also noting, insisting, arguing, pointing out, making clear, reminding us, refuting a counter-claim, defending a position previously taken, etc, etc.  So, “as Emanuel reminds us” does a lot more work than “as Emanuel says.”  It’s a much better, more effective way to cite.

Brackets and Ellipses

Ellipses are used to acknowledge that you’ve left out something that’s irrelevant or too long:

I will have pursued my life’s projects and made whatever contributions, important or not, I am going to make….Dying at 75 will not be a tragedy.  (Emanuel)

Brackets are used to acknowledge that you’ve made some addition or change to the original, sometimes an extra word or two to clarify, but usually only endings that are inconsistent with the sentence you want to pull the quote into:

Ezekiel Emanuel has become well-known for his objection to the “manic desperation” to extend one’s life that he says is the opposite of “liv[ing] a complete life” (Emanuel).

Don’t use them deceptively, to alter the meaning or spirit of a quoted passage, but brackets and ellipses are very powerful tools for quoting in focused and purposeful ways.