You'll want to use direct quotes sparingly throughout your paper. Choose a direct quote when it can't be said any better than the author has stated it.
When you use direct quotes, you will take a section from a book or article and put quotation marks around it and put it into your paper. Here's a paragraph found on page 245 from the book Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich:
| On the morning of my first full day of job searching, I take a red pen to the want ads, which are auspiciously numerous. Everyone in Key West's booming "hospitality industry" seems to be looking for someone like me -- trainable, flexible, and with suitably humble expectations as to pay. I know I possess certain traits that might be advantageous -- I'm white, and , I like to think, well spoken and poised -- but I decide on two rules: One, I cannot use any skills derived from my education or usual work --not that there are a lot of want ads for satirical essayists anyway. Two, I have to take the best-paid job that is offered me and of course do my best to hold it; no Marxist rants or sneaking off to read novels in the ladies' room. |
If I want to use the second sentence in my paper, here's how I could direct quote it:
According to Barbara Ehrenreich, "Everyone in Key West's booming 'hospitality industry' seems to be looking for someone like me -- trainable, flexible, and with suitably humble expectations as to pay" (245).
or
"Everyone in Key West's booming 'hospitality industry' seems to be looking for someone like me -- trainable, flexible, and with suitably humble expectations as to pay" (Ehrenreich 245).
In the first example above, I've put Barbara Ehrenreich's name into my sentence, and just put the page number in brackets at the end of the sentence. Notice that quotations within quotations (the words 'hospitality industry') require the use of single quotation marks for the embedded quotation. I end the quote after the word industry, so you see three quotation marks ('"). Also notice where I've put the period at the end of the last parentheses: (245).
There are several good verbs I can use as lead-ins. Notice that I said "According to Barbara Ehrenreich..." but I could also just have well chosen to say, Barbara Ehrenreich notes ..." or, use a choice from the chart below:
|
The author or (name of author) |
discusses + (topic) |
| This (type of genre) | is concerned with + (topic) deals with is about examines focuses on addresses |
|
The author or (name of author) |
Points out + that (subject + verb) |
Chart Credit: Kate Kinsella, San Francisco State University
In the second example above, since I didn't mention Barbara Ehrenreich's name in my sentence, I need to give her credit at the end of the sentence and so I put her name and the page number in parentheses: (Ehrenreich 245).
When I put the author's name and/or page number in parentheses at the end of a direct quote, this is called an "in-text" citation. It could also be called a parenthetical citation because I am using parentheses () to enclose important information about where the quote came from. The person reading my paper would then know to go to the Works Cited page at the end of my research paper to look up more information about the author whom I direct quoted.