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Connecting Arguments and Evidence: Using Quotations

Writing involves linking the abstract and concrete. By abstract we mean presenting ideas, making claims, drawing conclusions, etc. By concrete we mean giving information, stating facts, making observations. We need to engage both processes.

Let’s say the abstract is about argument and the concrete is about evidence. Argument is what we supply as writers as an insight or judgement. It’s the creative, critical component. Evidence is what proves or illustrates a point. It’s the objective data we find “out there” when we begin research. We need to establish links then between what we want to argue and what we observe in our subject. One way is through quotations.

There are other ways of getting information about subject into our paper, such as paraphrase and summary. For now let’s focus on quotations. A quotation is a selection of words from an outside source, which is reproduced in your paper exactly as it occurs in the original. You need to choose the right time to use a quotation. Also, you must show that it is a quotation (someone else’s words not yours), and name your source. There are different formats available for acknowledging borrowed words, depending on the discipline you’re writing in.  Examples are MLA and APA. (More on this at another time….)

We said that using a quotation helps prove or illustrate a point. There’s another reason, which has to do with writing being a dialogue. Adopting a quotation is a way of showing you’re in conversation. You’re talking about another text. Also, you’re a member of a group, a community of scholars who share a common interest. Professors expect to see signs you’re part of this larger community. You need to know its conventions.

But let’s get back to quotations. There are both effective and ineffective ways of embedding outside materials into your paper. Of course, you’ll want to choose the “effective” way. One tip you may find helpful: write shorter sentences.  

Here’s a paragraph that wants to talk about William Blake’s poem, “The Sick Rose.”  It starts by making an interesting claim about two abstract ideas, love and death. It’s interesting (potentially) because love and death seem opposed to each other. One is attractive and the other is, well, not. Yet the claim is being made that, in this particular case, they’re related, mutually dependant in some way. Good so far.   

In The Sick Rose Blake shows love and death are very closely related. “O Rose thou art sick.” Rose is a woman who doesn’t seem to be feeling too well. She is in love with a worm.  She has a problem.

The claim is interesting because it suggests a paradox. Once we read the first sentence, though, we naturally want to ask, “Related how?” Or, “where is this relationship shown, or hinted at?” The next sentence in theory should answer this query, but as you can see it doesn’t. There’s no connection between the argument that love and death and the fact that Rose, whoever/whatever that is, is sick. The logical link between the idea and the evidence isn’t, to say the least, obvious. The connection needs to be overt.

At best, the reader has to work very hard to figure out the hidden link between the claim and the evidence. And if the reader has to work too hard, how long can we expect to keep his/her attention?

Another thing. We’re not prepared, as we read from the first to the second sentence, that a quotation is coming. It just happens.  So, in order to prepare the reader for what’s ahead, why not introduce the quote? There are a few devices for doing this. We could preface the quotation by saying:

 The speaker says, “O rose….”
 The first line reads, “O Rose….”
 We are told, “O rose…”

And so on. There are lots of such introductory phrases, and as long as your sentence (your words plus the borrowed words) make sense, you’re safe. Here’s a trick.

Read over the whole sentence—the introductory words plus the quotation—without the quotation marks and ask yourself if you understand it:
 
 In O Rose thou art sick Rose is seen to be in love with a worm.
 
Since this doesn’t make sense as a grammatical unit, we can say the quoted words are improperly set up.

Here’s an example of how to build quoted words into a longer sentence. Note the relatively short sentence length overall. Note too the way in which each sentence unit seems to do one job only, either to set out the quotation, or interpret it.  (Expressing ideas one step at a time helps clarity.) Most importantly, note how the quoted words blend meaningfully into the overall sentence. Finally, well-chosen transitions enhance the feeling of flow between points. The overall effect is one of gradual development.

In “The Sick Rose,” Blake shows that love and death are closely related. For example, Rose has a “bed / of crimson joy” (5-6). Given the reference to a “bed,” we suspect that the joy Rose feels may be the joy of love. However, we are also told that Rose is “sick” (1). She is sick because the “invisible worm” (2), which represents a “dark secret love” (7), has found her bed. This worm now attacks Rose. The question arises, why should love involve death?

Meanwhile, certain styles of incorporation should be avoided. Don’t, for example, refer to quoted words as a quote. Such words aren’t, in their given form, quotes, because they haven’t been quoted yet; they’re part of the original text. Also, don’t count words in quotations as a single part of speech, such as a noun. Long quotations shouldn’t be considered a subject of a verb such as “means.” Read the quoted words separately, as having their own meaning. Blend their meaning into the meaning of the whole sentence.  

In short, avoid the following:

Many times in literature love and death are the same thing. The poem The Sick Rose by William Blake is no exception, as in the quote, “Oh Rose thou art sick.”

“In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure dome decree” means Kubla Khan is very powerful.  “Where Alph the sacred river ran through caverns measureless” is an image of terror.

The quote “In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure dome decree.” This tells you Khan is powerful. “Caverns measureless to man” is an image of terror.

Instead, write like this:

In Coleridge’s “Kubla Khan,” we are presented with given an image of a “stately pleasure dome” (1). This dome is a creation of words, we note, for Kubla Khan pronounces this place into existence by “decree” (2). We know this is a joyous place because there are many images of life, fertility. For example, “there were gardens bright with sinuous rills” (8). In addition, it is suggested that everything is in motion: we are told of “dancing rocks” (23).  This is a “sacred” (3) place as well. On the other hand, it is haunted, terrifying , as we see when we are told of a “woman wailing for her demon lover” (16). Thus, a connection is established between between life and death, light and darkness. These point to an even larger bond between the sacred and profane.

So far we’ve looked at examples using poetry. What about when we quote from prose forms:  stories, novels, essays, and so on? Basically, the same rules apply.

Be gradual in developing your argument (one step at a time is good). Be selective in your choice of quotations, taking care to show why you’re quoting, at this time. And prepare your reader that a quoted passage is coming. Introduce all quoted material. 

Here’s a passage of prose description. It’s from Joseph Conrad’s short story, “The Secret Sharer.” How might we use this passage, or parts of it, in a paper?

On my right hand there were lines of fishing-stakes resembling a mysterious system of half-submerged bamboo fences, incomprehensible in its division of the domain of tropical fishes, and crazy of aspect as if abandoned for ever by some nomad tribe of fishermen now gone to the other end of the ocean; for there was no sign of human habitation as far as the eye could reach. (5)

Note that this passage, being longer than four lines, is set out as a block quote. It takes up its own space on the page. It isn’t run into your paragraph.

You could introduce this passage using any one of the following expressions:

At the beginning of the story, Conrad sets the scene:
Conrad describes the setting as follows:
Conrad says/tells us:
  
The story is about a sea captain who meets his double, so:

The captain says/tells us:
For the captain, the world is divide in two:
Here is how the narrator sets the scene:
 
Note how all these introductory expressions are in the present tense.

If we were to choose shorter passages, these could be blended into our paragraphs, for example as follows:

Conrad describes “fishing-stakes resembling a mysterious system of half-submerged bamboo fences” (5).

(Since the author’s name, “Conrad,” is given in the first part of the sentence, you don’t need to put his name in the parenthesis at the end.)

Early in the story we are told that the world looks “crazy of aspect as if abandoned for ever by some nomad tribe of fishermen” (Conrad 5).

(Since Conrad’s name isn’t part of the introduction of the quotation, this appears in the parenthesis after the quotation.)
 
TIP: It’s a strategic move, when calling attention to how your ideas are evolving, to mark shifts in your thought. These are moments when you depart from an original insight and revise it or qualify it in light of new data or further reflection. Transitions that mark such swerves are:
 
At first, we think…
Later, though, we realize…
While at first glance it appears…
However, eventually we see…
Though initially it seems…
Still, by the end of the story…