How To Use Quotations in a Term Paper

Why do you use quotations?

Quotations are used in essays and papers to support your ideas. When you research, you find a wealth of information. It is your job to sift through that information and create ideas to develop in your paper. Once you have create these ideas, the authoritative sources are used to give credibility to those ideas. They are "proof" that your idea is the right one or that the opposing idea is the wrong one.
It is important to remember that the term paper is not focused on these quotations. The term paper focuses on proving your thesis true and finding and developing ideas that will ultimately do this. The quotations are only there to support the ideas YOU have put forth. Do not discuss the quotations as ideas in and of themselves. They are always conected to your ideas

How do I include quotations in my term paper?

The current MLA format for term papers includes Work Cited Lists and not footnotes. This affects the way quotations are written into your term paper as well as how they are cited.

Basic Format
1. State your ideas.
2. Introduce quotation: give author's name and title of article, book, etc.
3. State quotation.
4. Put page number in parentheses.
5. Connect the quotation to your ideas.

How should the quotation look in the text?

There are two basic rules to follow on how the quotations should look in the paper. Which one you use is determined by the length of the quotation.

1. If the quotation is 3 lines or less the quotation is given opening and closing quotation marks and is written
within the paragraph. The page number is put outside the quotation marks.

example
The truth about love is that it is not the easiest emotion to deal with. It is the result of factors that are

both physical and mental. Love is inspired by beauty both inside and out. Jeff Bunyon, in his article "Love is

the Complex," states, "Love is not easily destroyed because the source, the 'cause' is embedded in all our

senses. It is not just a physical experience. It's not just an emotional experience." (92)It is clear that love is

much more complex an emotion than some people realize.



2.If the quotation is 4 lines or more the quotation must be "sectioned off from
the rest of the paragraph. Introduce the quotation, double space down then change the
settings to single space. The margins should then be moved in 10 spaces from the inch
margin. There are no quotation marks and the page number is put after the final
punctuation mark.

example
The fact that Poe was an alcoholic may be the reason that he created characters that obviously

suffered from the same addiction. It is clear in "The Black Cat" that the narrator develops the awful

habit and this is what creates the maniac in him that kills both the cat and his wife. In The Truth about

Writers, Patricia Morehouse wrote,

Poe is terminally ill with the disease know as alcoholism. He
then develops other addictions such as to opium. These diseases
overwhelm him and he cannot escape them, even in his fiction.
He creates characters that are Edgar Allan Poe. They are who
he has become. It is easily seen in "The Black Cat" where the
narrator outrightly admits to his addiction and to this addic-
tion as the cause of his misery and frustration. (110)

It is obvious that Poe's characters are the embodiment of his own flaws and insecurities and his addictions.

It might be his cry for help or his way to make a complacent audience more socially conscious.

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