Dr. Susanne George

Composition and Literature

QUOTATION MARKS

In writing research papers and analyzing literature, a writer often incorporates brief summaries and direct quotations into his/her essay both as a means of BEING SPECIFIC and as a way of proving a truth that he/she has discovered about the work. According to the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, "quotations are common and often effective in research papers." However, the authors urge selectivity: "Quote only words, phrases, lines, and passages that are particularly interesting, vivid, unusual, or apt, and keep all quotations as brief as possible." Normally quotations should correspond exactly in spelling, capitalization, and interior punctuation (56). The following rules, taken from the MLA Handbook, should serve as guides in using quoted passages in a literary analysis.

[Note: All of the above quotations and references are from page 56 in the same resource, so only the last of the series needs the page number listed.]

I. Plot summaries

When summarizing a plot or an incident from the story, the writer should be as brief as possible:

In the beginning of A Reckoning, Laura must confront her cancer and death, and she does so most often in the morning, her time for solitude and reflection. Hilary, a renowned poet in her seventies, must, in addition to coming to terms with her creative impulse, understand herself as a woman artist in a world dominated by masculine standards.

II . Short quotations

A. Prose quotations of four typed lines or less should be placed within quotation marks and incorporated into the text. It is not always necessary to reproduce complete sentences, for the writer may choose to quote just a word or phrase. For the sake of variety, the quotation may be placed at the beginning, middle, or end of the sentence. The writer may even divide the quotation with his/her own words. In any case, the quotation must fit grammatically into the sentence.

The idea of sunlight streaming through cathedral windows haunts Sarton, and she employs this image frequently: "A glittering day, the sky has the piercing blue of the stained-glass windows at Chartres" (87).

Sarton compares the sky to "the piercing blue of the stained-glass windows at Chartres"(87).

"The light!" she exclaims. "It is like living in a diamond in this house where the white walls relfect the snow outside" (86).

B. The writer must identify the author and the source of the quotations. If only one work is being quoted in a paper, a writer will usually identify the name of the story and the author in the introduction. Subsequent references and quotes will be assumed to have come from that one work.

C. If more than one work by the same author is being analyzed, each particular work being quoted, its title shortened, should be noted in parentheses with the page number:

The idea of sunlight streaming through cathedral windows haunts Sarton, and she employs this image frequently: "A glittering day, the sky has the piercing blue of the stained-glass windows at Chartres" (Solitude 87). She uses other metaphors to emphsize her fascination with light. "The light!" she exclaims. "It is like living in a diamond in this house where the white walls relfect the snow outside" (Plant 86).

D. If more than one author is being quoted, each author's complete name and the complete title of the work must be introduced in full the first time it is used in the text. Subsequent references may be made simply by placing the author's last name and the page number of the quotation in parentheses:

In much of Western American literature, nature is personified until it somethimes becomes a major character in the work. In the Rockies, Long's Peak becomes more than just a pile of stones, for "It becomes invested with a personality. . . . The thunder becomes its voice, and the lightnings do it homage" (Bird 107). Even the night comes alive ion the Wyoming badlands, and "the big white stars [flirt] shamelessly with the hills" (Stewart 11).

III. Long Quotations

If students wish to use a quotation of more than four lines, they must set it off from their text. First, they must double-space between the text and the quotation, then indent ten spaces from the left. The entire quotation is also double-spaced, as well as the space between the end of the quotation and the continuing text. The sentence before the indented quotation usually ends with a colon(:) although sometimes the context of the sentence requires a different mark of punctuation. If the quotation starts at the beginning of a paragraph, then the writer should indent an additional five spaces. If the quotation begins later in the paragraph, the first line should not be indented more than the rest. Quotation marks are not used with indented quotations. The final period is before the page number in this case.

Yet, argues George Eliot, women's writing should be unique. In her essay, "Women in France: Madame de Sable," published in l854, Eliot asserts:

It is an immense mistake to maintain that there is no sex in literature. Science has no sex: the mere knowing and reasoning faculties, if they act correctly, must go through the same process, and arrive at the same result. But in art and literature, which imply the actions of the entire being, in which every fiber of the nature is engaged, in which every peculiar modification of the individual makes itself felt, woman has something specific to contribute. (453)

IV. Quoting Poetry

When quoting part of a single line of poetry or the whole line, the verse would be punctuated like other quotations. However, if a writer quotes 2-3 lines of poetry, a slash (with a space on either side) should be used where the line breaks. Poetry quotations of more than three lines should be indented 10 spaces from the left, with the same line breaks as in the original, and double spaced. Do not add any quotation marks that do not appear in the original.

In "The Road Not Taken," Frost describes two paths that "diverged in a yellow wood" (871).

In "The Road Not Taken, " Frost looks back on the effect of a choice of paths he made in his life, but he leaves the reader with am ambiguous ending: "I took the one less traveled by, / And that has made all the difference" (872).

When confronted with a choice in "The Road Not Taken," Frost struggles with his decision on which symbolic path to follow:

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth. (871)

V. Internal Documentation

If scholarly sources or references are being used as support, Internal Documentation may be used to identify the sources rather than the traditional Footnotes or Endnotes. Again, the writer must identify both the author and the title of the outside reference, as well as provide, at the end of the sentence and in parentheses, the page number from which the quote or idea is taken:

In Metaphors of Self: The Meaning of Autobiography, James Olney states that "metaphor is essentially a way of knowing" (31). "Metaphor," he believes, "says very little about what the world is, or is like, but a great deal about what I am, or am like, and about what I am becoming" (32).

"The evident intent of the Impressionist," states Charles Edward Gauss in The Aesthetic Theories of French Artists, "was to catch the subject that he painted in one of the fleeting moments of its existence" (20-21).

Italicize (or underline) book titles, movie titles, names of magazines and journals, and collections of stories, poems, and essays. Use Quotation marks around titles of separate short stories, poems, articles, and essays. (The Scarlet Letter, "Young Goodman Brown," "Mending Wall")

VI. Ellipsis

If a writer decides to omit material from within a quotation, he must indicate this with three (3) spaced periods. For ellipsis within a sentence, he will use three periods . . . with a space before and after each period. When omitting sentences within a paragraph and an ellipsis coincides with the end of the sentence, four periods with no space before the first will be necessary. . . . However, if the writer quotes only a word or phrase, it is obvious that he has omitted some of the original sentence and ellipses at the beginning and end of a word or phrase are unnecessary.

VII. Punctuation

When punctuating quotations, commas and periods generally go inside the quotation marks "unless the name of the book and/or page number on which it appears follows it" (78). Semi-colons, colons, and dashes go outside"; question marks and exclamation points go inside if they are a part of the quotation, outside if the writer adds them"!

Use single quotation marks inside of double quotation marks when quoting dialogue or a quote within a quote.

In William Faulkner's short story about the South entitled "Barn Burning," Sarty knew his father was going to set fire to the Colonel's barn, and he became terrified when he realized that this time his father would send no warning: "'Aren't you even going to send a nigger?' he cried. 'At least you sent a nigger before!'" (446).