Effective Use of Quotation From Other Writers

Dr. Debra Romanick & Dr. Margaret Boerner 

        First, one uses quotations, not quotes--the abbreviation "quotes" has not yet made its way into good written English.  Further, since an author cannot quote him/herself, one does not, for example, use "quotes" from Shakespeare but rather lines from Shakespeare.  That is, Shakespeare wrote lines in Hamlet, not "quotes," and you are using his lines, his words to support your ideas about his meaning.

        As to using quotations themselves, quotation-use is not just a writing goal; it is the goal of my whole course. I want students to be able to notice the words of a book--to be able to analyze them and incorporate them into their writing and thinking.   And most students cannot yet do so.  Even when pressed to include lines from the text, students often choose ones which bear little relation to the point they are tying to make. They have trouble choosing relevant passages, distilling their salient elements or grasping their context. I approach this problem in several ways. First, I emphasize use of quotation from the text we are reading, early and often. From the very first assignment, I stipulate that students must back up what they say with brief excerpts. Indeed the first assignment is often an explication, which I frame as a letter to a friend explaining a passage.  I also use "evidence gathering" assignments in which students must find relevant lines  from the text to argue opposing positions.  In class, I work through individual passages, and encourage students to point to passages which support their points. I've also found debates to be a good tool here; I award extra points for direct quotations which effectively support or refute a team's point. Most important, I also have the class analyze excerpts from (anonymous) student papers. I ask two questions: "What is the writer's point in this paragraph?" and "How well does use of the author's text back up that point?" The students tend to be rather harsh critics, so long as they don't know who the writer is (if they do, they become blandly affirmative), but such criticism, within the bounds of civility, and balanced with examples of very good writing, helps drive home the point that readers are not mind-readers, and that writers must make their connections explicit--that is, BE KIND TO YOUR READER!