Writing Homework Help

Learning Objective:

This activity will help you learn to smoothly incorporate resources as quoted evidence in your writing.

Directions:

As I have mentioned, one of the skills we will be working on is incorporating evidence into our own writing. The purpose of this writing workshop is to help you incorporate citations into your writing effectively.

How to Set Up a Quote

Step 1: Consider the passage below:

The proponents of such laws frequently fail to disentangle three distinct issues: hate speech, hate crimes, and the silencing of victim groups. Hate causes each of these. It does not necessarily follow that hate speech causes either hate crimes or the silencing of victim groups or that anti-hate speech laws will relieve either problem. Censoring hate speech may have emotional and symbolic appeal but little if any utility as a solution.

This are direct lines from Paul McMasters, “Restrictions Against Hate Speech Violate the First Amendment.” It is on page 3 of the article.

Step 2: Review the following information:

First Time a Source is Used: When you are using a source for the first time, you have to properly introduce the source in order to make the information clear to the reader, avoid plagiarism and develop your own credibility (ethos). Here is a check list to help you do that. To correctly incorporate a quote, you must:

• state the author’s name
• establish the author’s credibility
• name the title of the author’s text
• include a completed sentence telling readers what the author is doing
• In a new sentence, use a verb to lead into the quoted passage
• After the close of the quote, put the page number the quote was founded on in parenthesis.
  • EXAMPLE: In her article “Warfare Is Only an Invention–Not a Biological Necessity,” Margaret Mead, the famous American cultural anthropologist, makes an assertion about warfare. She claims, “there are peoples even today who have no warfare” (417).

Consecutive Times a Source is Used: Once you have introduced your source the first time, you do not need to include the full introduction when using information from that same source. All you need to do is name the author’s last name and provide the page number.

EXAMPLE: Mead attempted to raise “liberated, nonviolent sons whose aggressive tendencies would be mollified by a sensitivity and compassion” (17)

If you choose not to name the author in the beginning of the sentence, you need to provide his/her last name in the parenthesis along with the page number.

EXAMPLE: One of the major causes of abuse is the use of alcohol or drugs. In fact, “Alcohol is almost always involved in family violence. Up to 80% of all cases involve drinking, whether before, during or after the critical incident” (Somers 310). Use these methods only after you have already identified the author, author’s credibility, and his or her text earlier in your paper.

Step 3: Write a signal phrase to introduce your citation. Be sure to include the following information:

• Author’s last name, followed by a phrase to identify the writer’s credentials, and short sentence about the main claim of the article overall,
• Then add another sentence that begins with: He says/claims/argues or any other verb to signal the quote (there is a list of them on page 2 of you handout)

Signal phrase:

Step 4:

Write in the quote (from above) after the signal phrase.

Step 5:

Parenthetical Citation. This is the page (or paragraph) number on which the information appears, listed between parentheses after the citation. This passage was found on page 2 of the article. Also include the writer’s last name if it is NOT included in the signal phrase above (which is probably is). Remember—only last name page number. NO commas, or any other marks: ( ).

Step 6:

Weave it all together. Incorporate steps 2-5 into a seamless citation. Be sure to pay attention to the grammar rules discussed previously in the workbook.

Here is an example of one that is complete (but from a different article):

In her article “Warfare Is Only an Invention–Not a Biological Necessity,” Margaret Mead, the famous American cultural anthropologist, makes an assertion about warfare. She claims, “there are peoples even today who have no warfare” (417).