Working with quotations

1. Working with quotations Q-tips or Quotation Tips **How to create a lead-in to a quote

2. What is a lead-in? • A lead-in in the method you choose to introduce a quote into your writing. • Your words must flow around the quote in some way. • Never drop the quote into your writing without an introduction. • The quote should never stand alone. This would be like dropping a quote bomb into your paragraph!

3. Examples – What do you mean by a lead-in? • Example of a bomb quote - • “He walked heavily, dragging his feet a little, the way a bear drags his paws.” • Example of a quote using a lead-in – • Lennie is described as a man who “walked heavily, dragging his feet a little, the way a bear drags his paws” (Steinbeck 2).

4. 3 Types of Lead-ins • 1. Sentence lead-in • 2. He says/she says lead-in • 3. Blended lead-in

5. #1. Sentence Lead-In • Write a complete sentence that introduces your chosen quotation. • You will connect the sentence to the quote with a colon which looks like this : • If you forget the colon, then you have not connected the quote to the sentence. • Example: • Even though Junior’s Indian tribe causes many difficulties in his life, he still loves and respects them: “And I realized that, sure, Indians were drunk and sad and displaced and crazy and mean, but, dang, we knew how to laugh” (Alexie 166).

6. #2. He Says / she says lead-in • One simple way to introduce a quote is to first tell the reader who says the quote by using “says” • You must include a comma after the “says” • Example: • Gordy teaches Arnold how to really understand a book when Gordy says, “You have to read a book three times before you know it” (Alexie 94).

7. #3. A blended quote • This is a more sophisticated way to include a quote in your writing. • You may choose to use a small chunk of a quote rather than a long sentence quote. • Blend that small chunk into your own sentence so that it all flows together as one. • Usually you do not need commas before the quote chunk as seen below. • Example: • Arnold describes his encounter with his mother’s geometry book using phrases like “nuclear bomb” and “mushroom cloud” (Alexie 31).