Integrating Quotes in Your Writing

Research is such an important part of academic writing, but there are many pieces to it, and each one requires a different skill and focus. 

Finding sources, evaluating those sources, reading and taking good notes — that’s all part of research. You have to do those to make sure you have a credible and strong foundation for the rest of your work. 

Once that part is done, though, you still have to find a way to incorporate the research into your own writing. 

In general, there are three ways to incorporate sources into your paper: 

  • Summary– giving an overview of the main idea of the entire work
  • Paraphrase– putting a small piece of the work into your own words
  • Direct Quote– taking a sentence or phrase word-for-word from the work and putting it in your own writing

You’ll usually use a combination of all three methods to fully use your sources. 

This resource focuses on the last one: direct quotes. How do you smoothly integrate them into your own writing?

What does integrated sources mean?

Integration means bringing separate things together. In this case, the separate things are your own words and the words from the research you did. 

Bringing them together has two separate — but connected — pieces:

  • Writing Style– You need to write your ideas in such a way that it’s easy to read and understand. 
  • Explanation– You need to make sure that you’ve fully explained the quote you’ve chosen and how it fits with the rest of your ideas.

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Tip 1: Pick Good Quotes

You’ll never be able to smoothly integrate a bad quote. The first step is picking meaningful, interesting, and well-written quotes to put into your paper. Remember, you can always paraphrase if a quote is too long, not written very clearly, or too full of jargon/technical language.

Consider the difference between these two quotes. 

  • Shane explained that “[a]s early as 2016, it was already producing hundreds of articles a year. Here’s an example of its reporting on a football game” (33). 
  •  As Shane explains, “an AI like Heliograf would utterly fail when faced with information that doesn’t fit neatly into the prescribed boxes” (33). 
In the first example, I chose a quote that doesn’t really give much information. It’s a line that was used to introduce more information inside Shane’s own work. Taken out of context, it’s not very interesting to my readers. 
 

The second quote, however, provides interesting information stated in a clear, direct way. It’s a good candidate for a direct quote. 

Tip 2: Don’t Drop It!

A “dropped quote” is a quote that’s just tossed into your paper without any introduction or context. You always want some of your own words in the sentence, even if it’s just “According to Jane Smith,”

Here’s an example of a paragraph with a dropped quote. 

  • One place we are probably familiar with seeing AI in use in our daily life is in recommendations. Our Spotify list tells us what songs we might like. Netflix and Hulu suggest shows based on our viewing habits. “Hyperpersonalization is another area where AI is starting to show its usefulness” (Shane 32). 

And here’s one way you might fix it:

  • Hyperpersonalization is one area where we are seeing AI pick up in everyday life and “show its usefulness” (Shane 32). Our personalized suggestions on Spotify or Netflix are the results of AI at work. 

In the first example, there’s a dropped quote. I took Shane’s entire sentence and dropped it into my paper with no context or introduction. In the second example, I fixed it by just taking a piece of the quote and paraphrasing the rest. 

Tip 3: Don’t Abandon It!

After you’ve given a direct quote, take some time to explain it. Usually, you’ll want a sentence or two after a direct quote before ending a paragraph. That gives you a chance to come back with your own voice and make sure the reader understands why you used the quote and how it added to your main point. 

Here’s an example of an abandoned quote: 

  • One concern when it comes to AI is to make sure that it has parameters so its single-minded focus isn’t detrimental. As Shane explains, “a super intelligent AI might decide to convert all the resources it could into the manufacture of paper clips — even converting the planet and all its occupants into paper clips” (30). 

And here’s one way you might fix it:

  • One concern when it comes to AI is to make sure that it has parameters so its single-minded focus isn’t detrimental. As Shane explains, “a super intelligent AI might decide to convert all the resources it could into the manufacture of paper clips — even converting the planet and all its occupants into paper clips” (30). By using this hyperbolic example where an AI is tasked with creating as many paper clips as possible, we see that it’s very important to also program limits and rules. 

By adding an additional sentence after the quote, I made sure my reader understood how I was using the quote to connect to my other ideas. 

Reflect on It

Remember that the purpose of using direct quotes (aside from maybe meeting a requirement to do so on an assignment) is to help your reader fully understand the point you’re making. 

Ask yourself some questions to think about how you can do your best job as a writer using sources: 

  • How can I make sure the quotes I choose make sense to my reader?
  • How can I make sure my readers understand why I’m using the quote I chose?
  • How can I make sure the author of the source is clearly credited for their work?
  • How can I make sure I’m being fair in the way I use the original author’s ideas? Did I make sure I didn’t take their ideas out of context and twist their actual meaning?

Smoothly integrating direct quotes into your paper takes practice. It usually doesn’t just come naturally, so don’t stress if it takes several papers before it feels easier. Just remember to spend time focusing on this skill so you can build it as you grow as a writer.

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