How to Do Quotations

How to Do Quotations:

You must use at least three quotations from THE THINGS THEY CARRIED. One of the quotations must be embedded; the other one must be a block quotation.

Example of embedded quotation:

Tim O’Brien believes that the men were not operating from courage but rather from a deep-seated fear of shame. He states,”They carried the common secret of cowardice barely restrained, the instinct to run or freeze or hide….” This fear of losing face in front of their soldier-brothers was perhaps the “heaviest burden of all…” for it was a burden that one could never put down and that required “perfect balance and posture.”

How to use quotations within quotations:

O’Brien’s character Rat Kiley “listened for a time, then shook his head.’Man, you must be deaf. She’s already gone.’”
To show a quotation within a quotation, you use a single quotation mark to set off the quotation within the quotation. Then when you are finished with the larger quotation, you use the regular two quotation marks.

David Lee quotes from Shakespeare when he writes in his daily column that “everyone should abide by their own inner law and ‘to thy own self be true.’”

Block quotation:

O’Brien writes:

They carried all the emotional baggage of men who might die.
Grief, terror, love, longing – these
were intangibles, but the intangibles
had their own mass and specific gravity, they had tangible weight.
(page 21)

From this powerful quotation we learn that this is where O’Brien gets the title of his book.

If the quotation is longer than three lines, you must use block quotations.

For block quotations, you must skip a line from the paragraph, indent 12 spaces and use single space. Do not use quotations marks in a block quotation.

To cite the quotation simply put the page number in parentheses. (page 429)

FORMAT FOR ESSAY FOR FREDERICK DOUGLASS

OPENING PARAGRAPH:
MUST HAVE THESIS STATEMENT:
NO CLASS OF MAN WITHOUT INSULTING THEIR NATURES, CAN BE CONTENT WITH THE DEPRIVATION OF THEIR RIGHTS.
ANOTHER THESIS STATEMNT:
SOME MEN ARGUE THAT THE ABOLISHMENT OF SLAVERY SHOULD COME BEFORE THE ENFRANCHISEMENT OF THE BLACK SLAVE, BUT FREDERICK DOUGLASS IN HIS ESSAY, “WHAT THE BLACK MAN WANTS”, ARGUES THAT THE BLACK MAN SHOULD BE FREED AND GIVEN THE RIGHT TO VOTE AT THE SAME TIME.
IN THE OPENING PARAGRAPH ONE SHOULD INCLUDE THE TITLE OF THE ESSAY ONE IS WRITING ABOUT AND THE NAME OF THE ESSAY’S AUTHOR.

MINI-TOPIC SENTENCE
1 – 3 SENTENCES DEVELOPING THE MINI-TOPIC SENTENCE.
YOU MUST HAVE CITATIONS FROM THE ESSAY, “WHAT THE BLACK MAN WANTS”.
YOU MUST COMMENT ON THE QUOTATION.

EMBEDDED QUOTATION:
FREDERICK DOUGLASS BELIEVES THAT NOT BEING GIVEN THE RIGHT TO VOTE BRANDS US WITH “...THE STIGMA OF INFERIORITY….”

WHEN ONE USES A QUOTATION THAT IS LESS THAN FOUR LINES, THEN YOU EMBED IT IN THE PARAGRAPH.


DOUGLASS WRITES IN HIS COMPELLING ESSAY,” SHALL WE AT THIS MOMENT JUSTIFY THE DEPRIVATION OF THE NEGRO THE RIGHT TO VOTE, BECAUSE SOMEONE ELSE IS DEPRIVED OF THAT PRIVILEGE?” HIS ANSWER IS A RESOUNDING “NO”.

HE SAYS, “IT MAY BE ASKED,’” WHY DO YOU WANT IT?’”


BLOCK QUOTATION:
YOU USE A BLOCK QUOTATION WHEN THE QUOTATION IS LONGER THAN FOUR LINES:

In the block quotation, you skip a line, indent about 12 spaces, use single spacing and do not use quotation marks.
Then you skip a line when you are finished and go back into the body of the paragraph.

Example of body paragraph:

At the time there were many people who believed that it was unnecessary for the black man to have suffrage for many “men did not have the right to vote and they got along all right.” To this line of thinking, Frederick Douglass was adamantly opposed. He believed that the right to vote was a basic human right, He states, “....” Douglass believes that two wrongs do not make a right; that although ……