Colons and Quotations for Evidence/Dialogue

1. Colons and Quotationsfor Evidence/Dialogue English I Ms. Logan

2. General Rules • Commas and periods are always placed inside the quotation marks • Semicolons and colons are always placed outside the closing quotation marks • If the quote is a question, then the question mark goes inside the quote. If the quote is a part of the question you as a writer are asking, the question mark goes outside (same thing with exclamation point) • When writing dialogue (conversation), begin a new paragraph every time the speaker changes, and enclose the speaker’s words in quotation marks.

3. We use colons to stylistically separate a statement and its supporting evidence. • EX: In Faulkner’s work, there is a great many examples of dust used to symbolize memory:His novel Flags in the Dust champions his version of an old and forgotten history.

4. QUOTATIONS • We always use quotations to directly quote any evidence from the work and always CITE our sources. (Details coming.) • EX: Equality never wants to “be like his fellow brothers,”because he is already faster, stronger, and smarter than them (Rand 28).

5. The Ballin’ Way • Use a quote AFTER the colons ;) • EX: Anderson makes Melinda into something of a champion for girls without voices everywhere: Her “scabby lips, dowdy sweater, and lack of voice” allow young women to identify with that feeling of being lost in the world (29).

6. CITATION (TO CITE, CITING) • Citation- the information at the end of a sentence enclosed within parenthesis to signify from where the information was obtained • **may also be called an in-text citation at times • EX: Like his fellow before him, Equality rose everyday from a room with “nothing save one-hundred white beds” (Rand 90), telling the reader that he rose every morning from the so-called “perfection” of equality with his brothers.

7. It usually has the author’s name and page number in the parenthesis, but if you used the author in the sentence to talk about the quote, then you JUST use the page number.

8. For example, consider a paragraph built from this thesis: Elie Wiesel’s work Night has much powerful imagery, but none so powerful as the analogy he creates from the guards’ animosity between the Jewish people and beasts of the field.

9. The reader sees an overwhelming amount of violence as the Jews are treated like animals. For example, the German guards herd them Jews into “hermetically sealed cattle cars” (Wiesel 24) to transport them; the Germans are showing that they find the Jews no more important or time worthy than beasts of the field. During the initial conflict (as the Hungarian Nazis move into Elie’s small town and create two isolated ghettos for the Jews), the Jewish citizens are made to stand outside all day at the guards’ convenience. The sun is hot and there is no water; the queued people sweat and cry out for hydration but are ignored by the guards (Wiesel 15-17). This scenario brings forth a vision of a stockyard to the reader, implicating that the guards know that they are in total control and will treat the Jews like animals.