Quoting

WHAT IS A QUOTATION?

A quotation is the move to draw on someone else's exact wording in your writing. As students writing for college classes, you are immersed in many ongoing conversations. In each class you take, you are exposed to a variety of perspectives as they are presented through articles, textbooks, podcasts, presentations, and lectures. Part of entering the ongoing conversations these texts invite involves responding explicitly to others' words and building on them by explaining your thinking.

WHY DO WE QUOTE?

Using quotations is a common move to make in academic texts. You will want to use a quotation when you introduce another voice into your text or when you find a writer making a point so eloquently that you need to reproduce that exact wording in your work.

WHAT DOES QUOTING LOOK LIKE?

In his book Rewriting: How To Do Things With Texts, the scholar Joseph Harris describes many of the different ways writers create such "conversations" with other writers. He gives names for these, such as "coming to terms," "forwarding," "countering," "taking an approach," and "revising" other writers. Each type of interaction is discussed in some detail, but his larger point is that writers, especially scholarly writers, are always "rewriting" other texts. He writes:

As I write this book, for instance, I am sitting in a small room, before a laptop computer, surrounded by books, papers, and magazines — all of which I am, in some metaphorical sense, "in conversation with" (in much the same way I am also in conversation with you, my imagined reader). But what I am actually doing is working with a set of materials — looking for books on my shelves and flipping through them, folding pages over or marking them with Post-its, retyping passages, filing and retrieving printouts and photocopies, making notes in margins and on index cards, and, of course, composing, cutting, pasting, formatting, revising, and printing blocks of prose. I am, that is, for the most part, moving bits of text and paper around. I don't want to lose the metaphor of conversation entirely — writing is in a very real way a process of trying to say something to somebody. But a text is also an artifact; it is not only something you say but something you make. And so, even when your goal in writing is to enter into a kind of conversation about a subject, to form your own response to what others have had to say about it, the question remains of how to construct or assemble that response. (37)

In short, whenever we write academic prose, we are always reworking the texts of others (rewriting). One way to do this reworking — not the only way, and sometimes not even the primary way — is to use quotations.

OKAY, SO HOW DO I QUOTE? WHAT IS I–C–E?

Coastal Writers' Reference has this to say about quoting:

Use quotation marks to signal to readers that you are using another writer's exact words in your writing. Use a quotation when you want to introduce another voice into your text or when you find a writer making a point so eloquently that you need to reproduce that exact wording in your work.

When you quote, follow these steps: introduce the source (naming, most likely, the title of the text you are quoting from and the writer's name and expert status); bring in the actual quotation (and how you format this depends on the length of what you quote); cite the quotation by stating the writer's name and the page number you are quoting in parenthesis; and explain the quotation.

Making these moves, introducing, citing, and explaining quotations, will help you transition between your writing and others' and it will help situate quotations in your texts. This approach is often referred to as I–C–E; you'll want to be sure to I–C–E both your quotations and paraphrases. (40)

Here are the steps:

Introduce the quote. As CWR makes clear, when you decide to bring another voice into your writing, you need to signal that transition to your readers. We did this above when we shifted into the Harris quotation, by saying:

This is a solid example of introducing a quotation, the I in I–C–E. Notice that we not only named the title and author of this text, but that we also used a verb in the present tense to shift from our words to Harris' (in this case, we used "He writes."). When introducing quotations, it is important to provide your readers with sufficient context about who is talking and why. In the above passage, we identified Harris as a scholar, and in some cases, you may want to include even more details about your source. Consider the following questions: Why is this source an authority on this topic? Where and when did the quote appear? Are there any circumstances surrounding the quote that your reader should know?

Cite the quote. Once you introduce the quotation, you then need to make sure you format it and cite it correctly. The Harris example shows what a block quotation should look like. If we had quoted less than four lines of this text (and were using MLA style), it would look like this:

He writes, "As I write this book, for instance, I am sitting in a small room, before a laptop computer, surrounded by books, papers, and magazines — all of which I am, in some metaphorical sense, 'in conversation with' " (37).

Tending to these formatting conventions helps you ensure you are citing (the C in I–C–E) quotations properly. For more information on this, see Coastal Writers' Reference.

Explain the quote. Once you have introduced and cited the quotations you bring into your writing, you will also explain them. But this can entail more than just putting the quotation in your own words. Here are some possible ways of working with the quotations you bring into your writing:

What do these words lead you to realize? What new understandings or realizations do these words suggest? You might begin with something like, "While many assume X, this writer suggests Y" to show how your thinking has been shaped by this piece, by these words. By showing how these words pushed you to reconsider a point, you stress to your readers their significance.
What connections does this quotation allow you to make? To explain, or engage, a quotation, you might also discuss it in light of what has been said before. What other texts, conceptions, or theories might you turn to as you comment on these words? You might make such connections to show the strength of an argument ("Like X, Y also argues that") or you might use them to show different opinions ("While X argues A, Y's assertion that B raises some interesting questions"). Making this kind of move helps you carve out a lot of space as a writer.
How might you extend a point made in this quotation? You can use a quotation as a starting point, to introduce an idea to your readers so you can build on it as you develop a point. You might say something like, "While X explains that, this argument can also be applied to Y." This move allows you to acknowledge a writer's point and also show how it can be extended to other arguments, settings, concerns, or issues.
What critique does this quotation invite? Many student writers assume that most writers only quote sources (and words) they agree with, words they might wish they had said themselves. But, in most cases, that isn't true (though we certainly agree with Harris' words). In many cases, we agree with some of what is being said, but not all of it. In other instances, we might not agree with a quotation at all. In these cases, we might say something like "Though X makes a strong point about A, he fails to consider B." This move positions you to critique a source, to point out what it doesn't do well, and consider those implications.
How might you evaluate the source this quotation is taken from? Evaluating quotations and the larger sources from which you draw them helps you situate these sources in order to establish your own argument or point. While this might seem counterintuitive (you might think, "Why would I even bring a source into my writing if I don't think it is great?"), it is actually a very common move to make in academic writing. Particularly effective is a tempered evaluation, one that shows both the strengths and weaknesses of a source or quotation. You might say something like, "While many readers might find X's point persuasive, I suggest that his narrow focus retracts from his work." It is common practice to evaluate sources when you are introducing a source. To do this, you might say something like "X, in her landmark essay 'A,' provides insight into this issue." By acknowledging that a piece is "landmark" text and that it provides "insight," you are evaluating this source by telling readers you (and others) find it valuable.

For citation, use:

Coastal Carolina University, Department of English, First-Year Writing Program. "Quoting." Coastal Composition Commons, 24 August 2017, https://ccc.coastal.edu/task/quoting-2/. Accessed xx xxxxxx xxxx.