Name: ______Date: ______
6B- _____ Writing: Using Quotes
Quote (verb): to copy someone’s exact words
Quote or Quotation (noun): a copy of someone’s exact words.
*Students often use quotes when they’re writing about something they’ve read.
Ex: At Cap Anderson’s memorial, as students swoon over Cap, Zach thinks, “No football player could fail to recognize what I was experiencing right then. It was the moment on the field when you realize that you’re completely, hopelessly out-classed. When I looked at the hairball on the payload, I didn’t see the eighth grade president; I saw the Super Bowl champions.”
Purposes of a Quote
- A quote mightshow or prove your opinion for you. It supports your point.
- It might capture the exact feelingor special meaning of something that someone said, often in a way that you, yourself, couldn’t really do quite the same way; a quote gives readers an example of unique wording or a powerful idea. It tends to have deep meaning that isn’t always obvious at first glance.
- A writer will often use a quoteto “borrow” authority from its original speaker. If an expert, an author, or even a character, herself, says something, it can be more convincing than if you, a writer with an opinion, tries to say more or less the same thing in your own words.
- Avoid using quotes just to summarize (re-tell) a story.
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Quotes Versus Dialogue
Differences:
- Writers (journalists, reporters, students, researchers, etc.) tend to use quotes in non-fiction writing to prove a point, whereas creative writing authors tend to use dialogue (characters’ conversation) in fiction to show characters talking to each other.
Similarities:
- Quotes and dialogue both use similar punctuation, like quotation marks.
- People often quote dialogue.
- Quotes and dialogue both tell readers exactly what someone’s said.
Writing Quotes
- Introduce quotes with a “tag”:
- Who said it?
- To whom? (*Not necessary if a narrator is “speaking” to the reader.)
- In what basic situation? (What’s happening? When? Where?)
- Put the tag in front of the quote, not after it.
Ex: As Zack sits at the table, he says to Hugh, “I’ll make sure
nothing good ever happens to Cap.”
- If you quote a nameless narrator of a story, you may refer to the narrator as “the narrator.” If you quote a nameless narrator in a poem, you may refer to the narrator as “the speaker.”
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- If a character has a thought, which she doesn’t say aloud, you may write something like the following in your tag: The girl thought…
- Or, if a character says something, but you can’t name his audience, you may say something like this: Tony said, to no one in particular, “I can do this!” Or this: Mark blurted his thought to anyone who was listening: “Oh, no! Not Mr. Hilpert!”
- To Punctuate a Typical Quote:
- Separate your tag from your quote with a comma or a colon (:).
- Start and finish the punctuation of your quote with quotation marks.
- Start your quote with a capital letter.
- Put the ending punctuation of the quote INSIDE your end quotation mark.
- In 6th grade,youdon’t need to include the page # for a quote.
- Length: Good quotes are powerful; don’t use too many of them; keep them brief.
- You may use more than 3-4 sentences, but quotes should be no more than 3-4 lines (vertically, going up and down) on your page.
- Try to limit yourself to 1-2 quotes per paragraph (if assignment allows…).
- You may use an ellipsis (…) to shorten a quote. However, if you do so, you must keep the original meaning of the quote.
Ex: Ron said, “English class is the air I breathe… it is my one desire!”
- What to Quote:
- You may quote dialogue (conversation) or narration (story-telling.)
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- Punctuating Quotes Within Quotes:
- When you want to put a quote within another quote, use double quotation marks on the outside quotation and single quotation marks on the inside quotation.
Ex: When Laura dropped the ball, Liz teased her: “As coach would say, ‘We catch with our eyes, not with our hands, so keep your eyes on the ball.’ ”