How to Integrate Quotations into a Literary Answer

 

 

Quotations and citations are a necessity and a must when writing an argumentative piece of literary answer. During the exam, most of the times, you are given certain thematic questions, character based questions as well as issues related to the literary genres you are studying. Here, in order to prove your arguments, you have to provide strong evidences.

Quotations or citations from the original text comes into play here. You have to extract lines from the text or poem based on the argument you are going to prove and you have to produce them in your answer. Most beginner students find it hard to write proper answers as they find it difficult as they have less idea of the way how to find the quotations and embed them into the answer properly.

In this post we are going to focus on: 

1. How to introduce quote by introducing an argument or a point to prove.
2. Finding and inserting a quote into the answer.
3. Providing an explanation as how your quote proves the argument or the claim. 

You can watch the video on the same content or continue reading:  

Introduction

First of all, you should have a strong or arguable point to introduce your quote. I have taken one of the term test questions given to my students to discuss the method to embed quotations.

The question is:

To the Evening Star is a celebration of the power of nature on human world. Discuss with close reference to the poem.

As mentioned earlier, we need a provable claim to prove the key question – How the evening star celebrates the power of nature on human world. Therefore, I have generated a point like:

The holy effect of the evening star provides protection to the innocent living beings even after its departure.

This is a good point because it is related to the poem and I have a quotation in my mind that is suitable to prove my claim. Starting off with a good claim should be backed up with some background description of the quotation. It will make the reader or the examiner easier to spot or understand your question. For this, you can provide a paraphrase of the quotation or some background information related to the quotation.

Therefore, before embedding the quotations, we can add the background like this:

Even after the departure of the Evening Star the evening dew covers the fleeces of the sheep providing a holy effect that protect them from the evil forces:

 

Embedding

Now, we have set the platform to introduce the quotation. It is the time to start embedding the quotation right after the introduction:

Even after the departure of the Evening Star the evening dew covers the fleeces of the sheep providing a holy effect that protect them from the evil forces: “The fleeces of our flocks are cover’d with/Thy sacred dew, protect them with thine influence!” (line 13-14)

It is better if you can cite the line number if it is a poem and the page page number if it is a novel. This is for a beginner answer, for higher academic answers there are standard ways of citation for outside sources like speeches and books related to the claim you are discussion on.

The most important thing when providing a quotation, providing the exact text without changing the original text. There are ways that you can make changes which will be discussed in our next post.

 

Analysis

Now that we have inserted the quote into the answer and it is the time to provide an explanation as how our quote proves the claim we have provided. Remember, it is not mere paraphrasing the quotation provided again. Here you have to analyze your quotation on how your quote meets the key issues in the question and how far it does prove your claim. It may be something like this:

The sacred dew covering the fleeces of flocks is a symbolical representation of the holy and soothing effect created by the nature on the living beings. It may provide the consolation to them after spending long hours under burning son throughout the day. Further, the speaker believes that the dew has a holy effect on living things that provides protection from the evil forces at the time of darkness.

Now, we have introduced the quotation, providing background support and have analyzed the quote too. Remember, we are writing a lengthy answer. So, it is necessary to provide a link to the next claim that you are going to make in order to have a smooth flow in your answer. like:

Evening star soothes not only living things but also the non-living things too.

By doing so, you can move to the next point. This makes your answer logical and coherent. Which will definitely provide you higher marks at the exam.

Let see the complete answer. For your easy reference we have color-coded the answer:

The holy effect of the evening star provides protection to the innocent living beings even after its departure. Even after the departure of the Evening Star the evening dew covers the fleeces of the sheep providing a holy effect that protect them from the evil forces: “The fleeces of our flocks are cover’d with/Thy sacred dew, protect them with thine influence!” (line 13-14). The sacred dew covering the fleeces of flocks is a symbolical representation of the holy and soothing effect created by the nature on the living beings. It may provide the consolation to them after spending long hours under burning son throughout the day. Further, the speaker believes that the dew has a holy effect on living things that provides protection from the evil forces at the time of darkness. Evening star soothes not only living things but also the non-living things too.

Hope you had a basic idea of how to integrate a quotation into your literary answer. In our next post we will be discussion on the technical aspects of embedding quotations. If you have questions to raise, please add them in the comments section. Share the post if you find this is useful to you.