HW2:
CONTINUED
QUOTATIONS
(page 4)
Generally, you will want
your quotations to be less than 10 words. Doing so often requires breaking a
quotation into smaller fragments and combining it with your own indirect quote
or paraphrase of the original material. Suppose you interviewed Jane Doe about
her reaction to John F. Kennedy's assassination. She commented (pay particular
attention to red text below):
"I
couldn't believe it. It
was just unreal and so sad. It was just unbelievable. I had never experienced
such denial. I don't know why I felt so strongly. Perhaps it was because
JFK was more to me than a president. He represented
the hopes of young people everywhere." |
You could quote all of Jane's comments, but her first three sentences are fairly
redundant. You might instead want to quote Jane when she arrives at the ultimate
reason for her strong emotions:
| Jane
Doe grappled with grief and disbelief. She had viewed JFK, not just as a
national figurehead, but as someone who "represented
the hopes of young people everywhere." |
Writers frequently intertwine summaries, paraphrases, and
quotations. As part of a summary of an article, a chapter, or a book, a
writer might include paraphrases of various key points blended with direct
quotations of striking or suggestive phrases as in the following example:
Original Text by Jared
Diamond on Haiti's poverty (full
text here)
France
also imported far more slaves into its colony
than did Spain. As a result, Haiti had a population seven times higher
than its neighbor during colonial times – and it still has a somewhat
larger population today. But Haiti's area is only
slightly more than half of that of the Dominican -Republic so that
Haiti, with a larger population and smaller area, has double its neighbor's
population density.
The combination of
that higher population density and lower rainfall was the main factor
behind the more rapid deforestation and loss of soil fertility on the
Haitian side. In addition, all of those French ships that brought slaves
to Haiti returned to Europe with cargos of Haitian
timber, so that Haiti's lowlands and mid-mountain slopes had been
largely stripped of timber by the
mid-19th century. |
Summary of Diamond text--notice how the author has blended paraphrasing with direct
quotations:
| Haiti's
poverty has historical roots. As scholar Jared Diamond notes, because the
French plantation owners of Haiti imported "far
more slaves" than did their Spanish counterparts across the
border, Haiti has a "somewhat larger population"
than the Dominican Republic but "only slightly
more than half" the territory, leaving it with "double
its neighbor's population density." Moreover, observes Diamond,
French slave ships to the colony "returned to
Europe with cargos of Haitian timber" and so "stripped"
the country of its timber by "the mid-19th century." |
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