Quoting Poetry To quote or not to quote? ( That is the question)

1. Quoting PoetryTo quote or not to quote? (That is the question) What to quote? When to quote? How to quote?

2. What to Quote • A quote from a poem is any line, word, or phrase from the poem. • Choose material for quotes based on its usefulness to your point or argument. • Be selective! • Do not allow quotes to take over your voice and authority within the explicative. • Quote or italics the title of the poem you are addressing in your explicative.

3. When to Quote • Whenever you integrate another source into your paper, you basically have 3 choices for how to put this information into your own writing. • Summarize - an idea or concept put into your own words. • Paraphrase - put a section of the text into your own words • Paraphrasing is not a game to see how you can transform the author’s sentence word by word by using a great thesaurus! • Verbatim - the original’s wording is so striking that including it in your paper is a must!

4. How to Quote • Quotes must be INTEGRATED INTO THE TEXT by making them part of your sentence and introducing them when necessary. • Quotes must be relevant and well chosen, otherwise they should be paraphrases or summaries. • All quotes (words, phrases, or whole lines) need to fit inside a sentence of your own, and make sense grammatically in it.

5. How to Quote • Each quote needs to be followed by the poet’s name, and the line number of the quote. (Frost 6) • If the word, phrase, or line doesn’t quite fit right into your sentence, you may alter it. • Be sure to indicate where the quote begins and ends “_____” • Periods go after parentheses for inserted quotations; before parentheses in block quotes.

6. Ways to attribute quotes • Add Remark Predict • Announce Observe Proclaim • Comment Reply State • Write Respond Question • Argue Retort Suggest • Declare Exclaim Counter • Note Propose Demonstrate • Maintain Assert Reveal

7. General Rules for Quoting • Using quotes means you have copied it exactly as it was originally written. • All quoted words, lines, or phrases need to grammatically fit inside a sentence of your own. • If the quote does not fit into your sentence, you may alter it in the following ways: • . . . to skip over words you don’t really need • [ ] to alter a word ending; “saved” could be changed to “save[s]” -- use with verb tense , person of a pronoun • ( ) to add a word or words that help make the meaning more clear

8. General Rules for Quoting • Do not use two quotations in a row, without intervening material of your own. • You may alter the closing punctuation of a quote in order to incorporate it into a sentence of your own • “Books are not life,” Lawrence emphasized. • Commas and periods go inside the closing quotation marks; the other punctuation marks go outside. • Lawrence insisted that books “are not life”; however, he wrote exultantly about the power of the novel.

9. Rules for Quoting Poetry • Whenever you mention the title of the poem, put quotation marks around it. • In “Sonnet LXIV,” Shakespeare expresses his sorrow at the changes brought by time. • Whenever you quote a word, line, or phrase that appears in the poem, put quotations marks around it. • The poem emphasizes contrast, for example, the contrast between “firm soil’ and “watery main.”

10. Rules for Quoting Poetry • Whenever you quote a phrase that begins on one line but ends on the next, indicate where the first line stops by using the back slash mark. Do not change capitalization or punctuation within the phrase. • Auden’s poem suggests that artists of the past were able to convey the truth about suffering; he says “. . . they understood/ Its human position; on how it takes place/ While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along” (Auden 2-4). • Notice the period goes after the parentheses. The location of the period is not the same when the quote is indented.

11. Rules for Quoting Poetry • Whenever you quote 4 or more lines, indent the quote and hit “Enter” at the end of each line of poetry. She thank’d men - good but thanked Somehow-I know not how-as if she ranked My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name With anybody’s gift. (Browning 31-34) • Notice that and indented quote does NOT require quotation marks • Notice that the period goes BEFORE the parentheses • MLA recommends indented quotes be DS but many instructors prefer SS

12. Quotes in Text - Sample # 1 • Wrong • “Has given my heart a change of mood.” In this quote it says that he feels better. • Right • In Frost’s poem the speaker says that the bird “has given my heart a change of mood” (Frost 6). • Better • After seeing the bird, the speaker feels “a change of mood” (Frost 6).

13. Quotes in Text - Sample # 2 • Wrong • In the quote “and saved some part of a day I had rued.” This means he regretted the day before he saw the bird. • Right • In the poem it says that seeing the bird “saved some part of the day I had rued” (Frost 8). • Better • The speaker had been feeling bad about the day, but then seeing the bird “saved” the day for him (Frost 8).

14. A Note on Paraphrasing • When reading a passage, try first to understand it as a whole, rather than pausing to write down specific ideas or phrases. You may have to read the information more than once. • Be selective - you don’t need to paraphrase an entire passage; instead, choose and summarize the material that helps you make a point in your paper. • Look away from the source, then write. • Take abbreviated notes, set them aside for a day or two; paraphrase from the notes.