Quoting and referencing

Week Three – 3B

College Writing

Self, Society & Sustainability

Quoting and Referencing

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/01/

Referencing/ Citation

Proper citation is extremely important

Use in-text citation to list a quote and the page and source of the quote.

In general, footnotes and endnotes are reserved for extensions of your argument, not simply to list the page of where you got a quote.

Be consistent in the style you use

WHEN IN DOUBT, CITE

Do you need a citation for:

Direct quotation?

Paraphrase?

Summary?

Facts, information and data?

In-text short quotationauthor’s surname + page no.

“Americans of all ages, stations, and dispositions are

forever forming associations” (Tocqueville 286).

Tocqueville believes, however, that “private interest

will become the chief if not the only driving force

behind all behavior” (295).

Quotation from an indirect

source

“I consider anybody a twerp who hasn’t read Democracy in America” (Kurt Vonnegut qtd. in Tocqueville vii).

Tocqueville described the leader of the French socialists as a “fanatic who looked like a corpse” (qtd. in Richardson 454).

Works CitedBellah, Robert N., et al. Habits of the Heart: Individualism and

Commitment in American Life. Berkeley and London: U of

California P, 1996. Print.

De Tocqueville, Alexis. Democracy in America. Trans. George

Lawrence. Ed. J.P. Mayer. Abridged Scott A. Sandage. New

York: Harper, 2007. Print.

O’Brien, Carl. “Cohesion of EU Project Weakened.” Irish Times 30

June 2012. Web. 26 August 2012.

Putnam, Robert D. “Bowling Alone: America’s Declining Social

Capital.” Journal of Social Democracy 6:1 (1995): 65-78. Print.

Richardson, Robert D. Jr. Emerson: The Mind on Fire. Berkeley

and London: U of California P, 1995. Print.

Block quotations

Longer quotations should be set off from the text

(4 or more lines of prose or 3 or more lines of verse)

Indent one inch from left margin

Retain double spacing

Do not use quotation marks

Example of block

quotation

Tocqueville explains that there are fundamental

differences between European and American core

values:

In Europe we habitually regard a restless spirit,

immoderate desire for wealth, and an extreme love of

independence as great social dangers. But precisely

those things assure a long and peaceful future for the

American republics (147).

To quote or not to quote:

that is the question

Utility: could the sentiment be adequately

paraphrased in your own words?

Efficacy: is it fit for the purpose of your argument?

Brevity: does it merit quotation in full?

Quoting etiquetteuse your ‘I’s

Respect your reader: INTRODUCE the quotation

[SET UP]

Respect your source: INTEGRATE the quotation. Tailor (not doctor) it to fit your argument and sentence structure

[QUOTE]

Respect your thesis: INDICATE the significance of the quotation

[UNPACK]

Don’t litter your essay with dropped quotes

Introducing a quotation 1

Simple tag: subject + verb + comma + capital letter

e.g. Tocqueville notes, “One hardly ever meets an

American who does not want to claim some

connection by birth with the first founders of the

colonies” (328).

Participial phrase + comma + capital letter

e.g. According to Tocqueville, “The American has always

seen order and prosperity marching in step” (149).

Introducing a quotation 2

Sentence + colon + capital letter

The sentence should anticipate the quotation

e.g. Tocqueville commends the restraint with which

Americans pursue the love of comfort: “There is no

question of sucking the world dry to satisfy one man’s

greed” (299).

Integrating a quotation 1

An integrated quotation requires no additional

punctuation or capitalisation, but it must fit your

sentence structure

Use an ellipsis to indicate omission, square

brackets to indicate an addition or alteration

e.g. Tocqueville considers that “adding a few acres to

one’s fields, enlarging a house, [and] making life

more comfortable …. are petty aims” (299), yet he

fears their capacity to undermine social cohesion.

Integrating a quotation 2

Don’t emasculate your quotation by stating it in

advance

e.g. Tocqueville asserts that wealthy Americans do not

profess an aristocratic disregard of physical comfort:

“I never found among wealthy Americans that lofty

disdain for physical comfort” (298).

Don’t misuse or malign your source by quoting

inaccurately or irresponsibly

e.g. Tocqueville, clearly a killjoy, claims that “love of

physical pleasures never leads democratic peoples to

such excesses” (299).

Indicating the significancemaking the link

Despite his admiration for American democracy, Tocqueville maintains that it “isolates [the individual] from [his] contemporaries. [If] each man is forever thrown back on himself alone … he may be shut up in the solitude of his own heart” (282).

In David Brooks’s account, this doomsday scenario has already come to pass. The twenty-first-century citizen of Bobos in Paradise is confined both to the solitude of his heart and to the exclusive domain of his designer kitchen.

Exercise 1

Introduce the following quotation correctly and

indicate its significance. Give the appropriate

reference.

“Individualism is a calm and considered feeling

which disposes each citizen to isolate himself from

the mass of his fellows and withdraw into the circle

of family and friends; with this little society formed to

his taste, he gladly leaves the greater society to look

after itself.”

Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 281.

Exercise 2

Introduce this quotation, edit it and integrate it into

your own sentence. Give the appropriate reference.

“In the United States there is hardly any talk of the

beauty of virtue. But they maintain that virtue is

useful and prove it every day. American moralists do

not pretend that one must sacrifice himself for his

fellows because it is a fine thing to do so. But they

boldly assert that such sacrifice is as necessary for

the man who makes it as for the beneficiaries.”

Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 293.

Exercise 3 Which of the sentences below are not supported by the

quotation?

“About fifty years ago Ireland began to pour a Catholic population into the United States. … Most of the Catholics are poor, and unless all citizens govern, they will never be able to attain to the government themselves” (Tocqueville 151).

a) Tocqueville was a French aristocrat and a Catholic.

b) Tocqueville identified with the poor because he suffered from tuberculosis.

c) Tocqueville underestimated the ability of Irish immigrants.

d) Twenty-two of the forty-four US presidents have claimed Irish ancestry.

e) Tocqueville visited America during the presidency of Andrew Jackson, who was of Irish extraction.

f) This shows why Irish Americans have traditionally supported the Democrats.

g) The nomination of Paul Ryan as Republican vice-presidential candidate vindicates Tocqueville’s faith in American democracy.

h) Tocqueville’s predictions were seldom fulfilled.

Exercise 4

Provide an introduction and a concluding comment for the following quotation. Reduce as necessary.

“ I think that, generally speaking, the manufacturing aristocracy which we see rising before our eyes is one of the hardest that have appeared on earth. But at the same time, it is one of the most restrained and least dangerous.

In any event, the friends of democracy should keep their eyes anxiously fixed in that direction. For if ever again permanent inequality of conditions and aristocracy make their way into the world, it will have been by that door that they entered.”

Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 319.

Exemplary use of

quotation “In the final paragraphs of this chapter Tocqueville modulates

his criticism at the same time that he emphasizes it:

I think that, generally speaking, the manufacturing

aristocracy which we see rising before our eyes is one of the

hardest that have appeared on earth. But at the same

time, it is one of the most restrained and least dangerous.

In any event, the friends of democracy should keep their

eyes anxiously fixed in that direction. For if ever again

permanent inequality of conditions and aristocracy make their

way into the world, it will have been by that door that they

entered.

It is the tendency to oligarchy, with its threats to republican

liberty, that we believe is today on the rise, especially in the

United States” (Bellah et al. ix).