How to use quotations

DO:

1.  use short quotations regularly to demonstrate your knowledge and understanding of the text that you are discussing

Example: Duffy presents Mrs Aesop belittling her husband. First she mocks his physical presence, ‘He was small, didn’t prepossess’, then his fables which she dismisses with the word ‘tedious’ and finally his sexual prowess or lack of it.

2.  ensure your quotations are relevant

Your quotations should be part of the evidence which supports your arguments. Your arguments (and your evidence) must be relevant to the question.

3.  embed your quotations where possible

When you embed your quotations, the sentence should still make sense.

Example: We lose sympathy with Mrs Quasimodo when she brutally ‘sawed and pulled and hacked’ at the very bells which have offered her sanctuary.

4.  use quotations to help you discuss patterns of language and imagery

Example: Duffy describes Queen Kong’s lover using food imagery so emphasising both his vulnerability and the sensuous pleasure Queen Kong takes from him. Queen Kong ‘peels him’ and licks ‘the grape of his flesh’. She ‘picked him, like a chocolate from the top layer of a box’. This use of language is disturbing since it shows the extent to which Queen Kong controls the relationship – she could, quite literally, eat him for breakfast.

5.  ensure your quotations are accurately copied.

DON’T:

1.  quote then paraphrase the quotation

Example: ‘By Christ, he could bore for Purgatory.’ Here, Mrs Aesop is saying that Aesop is very boring.

2.  use quotations to prompt your ideas rather than support them

Example: ‘At childhood’s end, the houses petered out.’ Duffy is saying that Little Red-Cap is moving away from the safe populated world into the unknown. ‘I took an axe to a willow’ Little Red-Cap is preparing to kill the wolf by attacking other living things first.

3.  randomly plonk quotations in the middle of a sentence

Example: Little Red-Cap is presented as a victim, ‘What big eyes he had! What teeth!’ just like Mrs Quasimodo.

4.  Do not simply list quotes back to back.
Example “blood” “dagger” “madness” shows Macbeth is going crazy. Instead, put all the words into context. IE: Hallucinating, the “blood” Macbeth sees on his “dagger” reveals his decent into “madness”.