USING AND CITING TEXTUAL EVIDENCE
Selecting Textual Evidence
§ Choose textual evidence to that supports / proves / illustrates your topic. For a five paragraph essay, select as many quotations as you can find to support your topic; then, narrow down the textual evidence to what best support your thesis.
§ Determine the topic of each body paragraph before selecting textual evidence so that your textual evidence can support that specific topic.
§ Textual evidence should be no longer than one to two sentences. Shorter text, such as phrases, is appropriate.
Example-
Body paragraph 2 topic- Explaining Tom Robinson as a mockingbird
Quotation: “He likened Tom’s death to the senseless slaughter of songbirds by hunters and children” (241).
Shorter version: “senseless slaughter” (241).
Citing and Punctuating Textual Evidence
§ If you are introducing a piece of textual evidence, it must have a comma.
Example- When Atticus says, “’remember, it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird’” (Lee 90).
§ Quotation marks around the quotation only.
§ Single quotation marks around dialogue
Example- When Atticus says, “’remember, it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird’” (Lee 90).
§ Cite the page number and author’s last name: (Raffel 62).
§ Correct punctuation: closing quotation marks, parentheses with author’s last name (NO COMMA) and page number, period.
Example- “It’s a sin to kill a mockingbird” (Lee 90).
§ When quoting lines of poetry up to three lines long separate one line of poetry from another with a backslash. Capitalize the first letter of the word after the backslash.
Example-
“Cassio represents not only a political but also a personal threat to Iago: "He hath a daily beauty in his life / That makes me ugly . . ." (5.1.19-20).
§ Commas and periods go inside the closing quotation marks; the other punctuation marks
go outside.
Examples-
Lawrence insisted that books "are not life"; however, he wrote exultantly about the power of the novel.
Why does Lawrence need to point out that "Books are not life"?
Where and How to Insert Textual Evidence
§ The introduction will open with a piece of textual evidence that relates to the thesis statement.
§ After that, you’ll start every paragraph with your own words (topic sentence).
§ Then, in around the third sentence of each paragraph, you can use a well-integrated piece of textual evidence to illustrate or prove the topic sentence of that paragraph.
§ And finally, you can close off each paragraph with an explanation/reflection of your own showing how that quote worked to support your point.
Example-
King brought the crowd to a cheering roar like the sound of a great cataract when he asserted that the promise of Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation had not yet been fulfilled. “One hundred years later, the Negro is still anguished in the corners of American Society and finds himself in exile in his own land,” he stated (303). King noted that the purpose of the giant gathering on the Mall was to illustrate the exact conditions across the South that make the Negro feel like exiles.
Patterns for Incorporating Textual Evidence into Sentences
§ An introducing phrase or orienter plus the quotation:
Examples-
1. In this poem it is creation, not a hypothetical creator, that is supremely awesome. The speaker asks, "What immortal hand or eye / Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?"
2. Gatsby is not to be regarded as a personal failure. "Gatsby turned out all right at the end" (176), according to Nick.
3. As Grendel endures the brutality of Hrothgar’s men, he mutters, “They hacked at me, yipping like dogs” (Gardner 2).
§ An assertion of your own and a colon plus the quotation:
Examples-
1. Vivian hates the knights for scorning her, and she dreams of achieving glory by destroying Merlin's: "I have made his glory mine" (390).
2. Fitzgerald gives Nick a muted tribute to the hero: "Gatsby turned out all right at the end" (176).
3. Cassio represents not only a political but also a personal threat to Iago: "He hath a daily beauty in his life / That makes me ugly . . ." (5.1.19-20).
§ An assertion of your own with quoted material worked in:
Examples-
1. For Nick, who remarks that Gatsby "turned out all right" (176), the hero deserves respect but perhaps does not inspire great admiration.
2. Satan's motion is many things; he "rides" through the air (63), "rattles" (65), and later
explodes, "wanders and hovers" like a fire (293).
§ Signal Phrases to set up quotations:
acknowledges, adds, admits, affirms, agrees, argues, asserts, believes, claims, comments, compares, confirms, contends, declares, demonstrates, denies, disputes, emphasizes, endorses, grants, illustrates, implies, insists, notes, observes, points out, reasons, refutes, rejects, reports, responds, states, suggests, thinks, underlines, writes