Integrating Source Material into a Documented Work

Axelrod, Rise B. and Charles R. Cooper. The St. Martin’s Guide to Writing. 7th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s. 2004.

Chapter 22: “Using and Acknowledging Sources,”pp. 747-

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Another excellent source is

Incorporatesources into a documented paper

  • By quoting directly
  • By paraphrasing
  • By summarizing

When to quote directly:

  • To emphasizememorable or clear, concise language writing that you cannot improve upon
  • To add credibility to your position through the words of reliable and respected authorities
  • To highlight the ideas or views of the author
  • To cite an author whose opinions challenge or differ from those of other experts
  • To include the original words in order to discuss the writer’s style

When to paraphrase:

  • To emphasize passages where the original source is not particularly striking

When to summarize:

  • To include only the main points of longer passages

Quoting:

If the source contains an error, copy it and add the notation [sic], which is Latin for “thus,” in brackets right after the error to show that the error appears in the source, not in your manuscript. Use regular type – no bold, quotation marks, or underlining.

Changing a quotation:

  • Use underlining or quotation marks to emphasize certain words
  • Use ellipsis points to omit irrelevant details or to tailor the quotation to fit grammatically.
  • Use three spaced periods (. . .) to omit words from within a quotation. Leave spaces before, between, and after the periods.
  • To omit words at the end of a quoted sentence, place a sentence period directly after the final word of the sentence, add a space, plus three more spaced ellipsis points (total of four periods).
  • If you end with ellipsis points, the parenthetical citation follows the final period and quotation marks.

When you quote only single words or phrases, ellipsis marks are not necessary. Just place quotation marks around the quoted material.

  • Use brackets to alter a quotation for grammatical purposes, such as parallelism or agreement
  • Add the phrase emphasis added in brackets – and not underlined or italicized – if you wish to underline or italicize a word or passage for emphasis
  • Brackets may also be used to add or substitute explanatory material in quoted material.

Integrating Quotations

  • You must blend quotations into your commentary.
  • Overusing quotations smothers your voice.
  • Quotations must be introduced; they do not simply appear.
  • Generally, long quotations are to be avoided. When a long quotation (4 lines or more in your paper) is absolutely essential (generally, only in a formal paper), it should be set off from the text, introduced properly, and preceded by a colon. In these cases, quotation marks are not used.

Avoid standing quotations alone as sentences; instead, provide clear signal phrases, which include the author's name, to

prepare readers for the quotation:

Although the bald eagle is still listed as endangered, the species has recovered numbers. According to ornithologist Jay Sheppard, "The bald eagle seems to have stabilized its population, at the very least, almost everywhere" (96).

Ways to vary your signal phrases:

  • In the words of author and activist Rick Bass, "…
  • As Flora Davis has noted, "…
  • The Gardners, experts in Colorado Plateau archaeology, point out that "…
  • Psychologist Sidney McMaynerberry offers an odd argument for this theory: "…
  • Jones notes in the November 2002 issue of Psychology Today that ". . . .
  • In his controversial book, The Naked Ape, Desmond Morris argues that. . . .
  • In a 2001 (book, “article,” etc.) entitled . . . , So-and-so examines the subject of catfish and observes that. . . .
  • According to Jones, . . .
  • In Jones' view/opinion/estimation . . . .
  • Jones contradicts this view in a 2003 Saturday Review essay in which he argues that . . .
  • However, Jones maintains that. . . .
  • Although Jones opines that . . . , Smith suggests another theory:. . . .
  • A (book, “article,””essay, “speech,” etc.) by Jones, which is summarized/referred to/alluded to/mentioned/included in a discussion) in one of Joe Moholzer’s New York Times’ editorials makes the point that . . . .
  • As reported by Jones in the October 22, 1968 Seattle Post-Intelligencer, . . . .

Use active verbs in signal phrases:

acknowledges

adds

admits

agrees

argues

asserts

claims

comments

compares

concedes

confirms

contends

declares

demonstrates

denies

describes

disputes

emphasizes

endorses

illustrates

implies

insists

maintains

notes

observes

points out

reasons

refutes

rejects

reports

responds

shows

states

suggests

summarizes

writes

Integrate Quotations from Outside Sources

Don't interrupt the flow of your own argument to give the author's full name or the source's full title. Spend fewer words introducing your sources, and devote more words to expressing and developing your own ideas in ways that use shorter quotations, or even just a few words, from your outside sources.

/ Have you ever noticed how some people just won't shut up? In the book Why I Love Words by the authentic-sounding fictional humorist Ira Talott, a similar point is made on page 45: "The streets are full of people who talk to themselves, who write journal entries to nobody. Do they feel that speaking and writing is more important than listening and reading? These people are boring at parties, but are they arrogant? They are compulsive communicators. It's more likely that they simply live in perpetual fear of silence." This quote shows that people who talk too much may not actually be able to help themselves, so we should be kind to them.
The above example makes a very small point, quoting a much longer passage than necessary, and expending far too many words on the buildup.
If you draw so much attention to your sources, your paper will end up sounding a little like this:
/ Hi, there, I'm about to introduce a quote now. I'm really proud that I found it because it took me a whole 15 minutes to find it in a book. Are you ready? Okay here is my quote. [Several sentences from the outside source.] Now listen up, because now that I've shown you the quote, I'm going to re-state every point in my own words, in order to make sure I get points for knowing what the quote means.
Our first revision will simply trim out the unnecessary words, removing all references like "here is a relevant quote" or "here is what I think this quote means," and instead simply focusing on writing a single sentence that not only introduces the quoted material, but also uses it in a sentence that drives an argument.
/ Talott is sympathetic towards "compulsive communicators," who are "boring at parties," but who are not actually arrogant; instead, they "simply live in perpetual fear of silence" (45).
This revision is marginally better, but only because it uses fewer words -- it's still just summarizing Talott's argument, rather than using the outside quote to advance the author's own argument. What this revision is missing is the application of the quote, in the service of advancing the author's original point.
Resist the temptation simply to add a sentence that says "This quote supports my thesis because..." Instead, make your argument flow naturally from your presentation of the borrowed material.
Three Potential Ways to Apply Borrowed Material

The following examples show three different ways that the same quoted material could be used to advance an original argument, by directly tying the material from one source to related material from another source.

/ Talott is sympathetic towards "compulsive communicators," who are "boring at parties" (45), but who are not actually arrogant. These people "live in perpetual fear of silence,"which makes them "especially susceptible to bottom-feeding advertising campaigns" (Jones 132) that prey upon low self-esteem and body image.
/ Talott is sympathetic towards "compulsive communicators," who are "boring at parties" (45), but who are not actually arrogant. These people "live in perpetual fear of silence," not unlike in Miss Bates from Emma, whose well-meaning but dull conversation makes her an easy victim of the heroine's insensitive teasing.
/ Talott is sympathetic towards "compulsive communicators," who are "boring at parties" (45), but who are not actually arrogant. These people "live in perpetual fear of silence," which contrasts sharply with the title character in Melville's "Bartleby the Scrivener," who would "prefer not to" leave the silent prison of his own making.
[Note: In this last case, Bartleby repeatedly says that he would "prefer not to" do various things... I didn't cite a specific page number, because the phrase appears in multiple places. --DGJ]

Note the absence of phrases like, "This quote supports my claims because..." or "Another quote offers a useful contrast with this quote." These revisions aren't wasting any words talking about "quotes" or "sources," just as a good carpenter won't call attention to nail holes or sawed joints.

Integrate Borrowed Material Smoothly and Efficiently

Avoid clunky, high-schoolish documentation like the following:

/ In the book Gramophone, Film, Typewriter, by Fredrich A. Kittler, it talks about writing and gender, and says on page 186, "an omnipresent metaphor equated women with the white sheet of nature or virginity onto which a very male stylus could inscribe the glory of its authorship." As you can see from this quote, all this would change when women started working as professional typists.
The passages "it talks about" and "As you can see from this quote" are very weak attempts to engage with the ideas presented by Kittler. In addition, "In the book... it talks" is ungrammatical ("the book" and "it" are redundant subjects) and nonsensical (books don't talk).
/ In the mid 1880s, "an omnipresent metaphor equated women with the white sheet of nature or virginity onto which a very male stylus could inscribe the glory of its authorship" (Kittler 186), but all this would change when women started working as professional typists.
This revision is marginally better, but only because it uses fewer words -- it's still not integrating the outside quote into the author's own argument.

Don't expend words writing about quotes and sources. If you use words like "in the book My Big Boring Academic Study, by Professor H. Pompous Windbag III, it says it says" or "the following quote by a government study shows that..." you are wasting words that would be better spent developing your ideas.

Using about the same space as the original, see how MLA style helps an author devote more words to developing the idea more fully. We shall continue to revise the above example:

/ Before the invention of the typewriter, "an omnipresent metaphor" among professional writers concerned "a very male stylus" writing upon the passive, feminized "white sheet of nature or virginity" (Kittler 186). By contrast, the word "typewriter" referred to the machine as well as the female typist who used it (183).
This revision is perhaps a bit hard to follow, when taken out of context. But if you put a bit of introduction into the space you saved by cutting back on wasted words, the thought is clearer.
/ To Kittler, the concept of the pen as a masculine symbol imposing form and order upon feminized, virginal paper was "an omnipresent metaphor" (186) in the days before the typewriter. But businesses were soon clamoring for the services of typists, who were mostly female. In fact, "typewriter" meant both the machine and the woman who used it (183).
The above revision mentions Kittler's name in the body, and cites two different places in Kittler's text (identified by page number alone). This is a perfectly acceptable variation of the standard author-page parenthetical citation.

Come back to title slide as an example!

  1. Remember that a quotation by itself has little significance. It needs your commentary to provide context and meaning. In general, your commentary on anything you quote should be longer than the quotation itself.

Choose quotations that provide significant information about character or the author's main idea rather than quotations that simply advance the plot.