Quoting in an Essay

Quotes provide good support in response to literature. Now, there are several ways you can use quotes to provide good support in response to literature. One way would be to pull out a quote and discuss whether you agree or disagree with it. Maybe the author put something in that you really agreed with or that you really thought emphasized what your evaluation of this work was. Maybe you really thought the author meant something whenever they were writing, that they had a certain theme they trying to get across, and this one quote just really contradicted that.

Maybe you want to disagree with that quote. Another thing you can do is use a quote to make a connection to another piece of literature. Maybe you found a quote in your work that you’re reading and it struck a chord and reminded you of something in something else you’d read. Connecting the two would make your interpretation stronger. Then, you could use a quote from your current work, or a work from the piece of literature you’re trying to connect, or you could use a quote from both of them to show the connection between the work you were responding to and the work you’re trying to connect.

Show how they’re similar. Show how they’re different. Make sure it’s helping support your interpretation, your response to this work, because the whole point of embedding these quotes is to support your response. Make sure what’s your showing is supporting what you’re trying to get across to the reader. One other way you can use a quote is to discuss characterization or plot. Maybe there is one area where a character says something that really shows that they’re not a very nice person.

Though they do a lot of things, deep down they’re manipulative or they’re trying to just get ahead in life. Maybe you have a quote that shows that someone you thought was not such a great character really is kind and just misunderstood. You might want to pull out that quote and discuss it if it’s going to support your response. Also, you could look for something that supports the plot.

You don’t want to just find a quote that says something that happened in the story unless it’s a major event or it kind of gives a moral to the story and it explains why the plot was laid out the way that it was. You want something that’s going to overall support your response. These quotes aren’t just being pulled out because you liked them. You’re getting them out because you can agree or disagree with it, you can connect it to another piece of literature, or you can discuss characterization or plot.

Whenever you’re doing any of those things, it’s going to support your response and your position on this work. Quotes are going to make your response stronger. This is why we want to use them. They make your response stronger, because they route your response in the text instead of just being something that came out of your head, something that you thought of all on your own, you’re showing that is something that came from the text.

It’s something that you’ve found in this work and it supports what you’re saying, what your response or interpretation is. When you’re using quotes, make sure you are using them responsibly, you’re using them to actually make a point and support what your response to literature was.