Three Main Ways to Integrate Quotations

This lesson will hopefully become drilled into every student's head before my time is done at this school.

Quotes from outside sources are never left alone.

The writer leads into the quote with a few sentences. Afterwards, he or she needs evidence to support the main idea of the paragraph. So, an outside quote is used.

But, the quote must be attached to another sentence or clause so that it does not stand alone. Then, an explanation or analysis follows. The process can be repeated with another quote within the paragraph, or the writer can move on.

Three main ways to integrate quotations exist.

1) Colon - Use whenever the part before is a complete sentence.

Scientists agree smiling lengthens the lives of humans: "By smiling each day, people will add five years to their life" (Sapp).

2) Comma - Use when the part before is not a complete sentence.

According to a noted scientist from Stanford, "By smiling each day, people will add five years to their life" (Sapp).

3) No Punctuation - Use in certain situations where the quotation can be added on without a break or pause while reading the sentence.

***In other words, read the sentence out loud. If no pause exists while reading, then do not use punctuation.

The noted scientist from Stanford believes smiling benefits humans because it "will add five years to their life" (Sapp).

Also, pay attention to where the period falls (RIGHT of the author's name).

A lot of time was spent on this lesson, so I'm expecting the quote integration to be done correctly on the research paper.