How to Use Quotes Effectively in a Literary Analysis

How to Use Quotes Effectively in a Literary Analysis

Purpose

Use quotes only to argue or support your thesis, never to summarize.

Embed the quotes

Introduce. Quote. Explain.

Situate the quote by introducing it. Who is saying it and what is the situation? This should lead into the quote.

Then connect the quote to your current argument. Smoothly argue the proof of the quote.

Introducing quotes

Use an independent clause and a colon.

In Russell Banks’s “God’s Country,” the theme of decay and isolation springs from the opening line: “The real estate man Harold Dame was dying” (131).

Incorporate the quote into the flow of your sentence.

In “The Road Not Taken,” Robert Frost implies an autumn setting; this can be seen in the visual images of “a yellow wood” (1.1) and the ground that is littered in “leaves no step had trodden black” (3.12).

Use a simple introductory phrase.

In Eugene Ionesco’s Rhinoceros, Berenger at first pays no mind to the rhinoceroses, merely remarking, “It made plenty of dust” (1.10).

*notice that for poetry and plays, line numbers are used instead of page numbers.

Avoid dropping in orphan quotes:

Mortis has used the surgical procedure for more than a decade.

“I have experienced remarkable success with that simple technique” (27).

Better:

Mortis explained that he has used the surgical procedure for more than a decade, “I have experienced remarkable success with that simple technique” (27).

Punctuation

Punctuate the end of the sentence after the parenthesis if it ends in a period (see above) and within the quotes if the sentence ends in exclamation point or question mark.

Tess tentatively asked the question, “Where have you been these last months?” (137)

If dialogue appears within a larger quote, use single quotes to set off the dialogue.

Tess’ change in behavior soon becomes evident as “a minute later she came down with a flush on her face and tears in her eyes, ‘How thoughtful you’ve been,’ she murmured” (334).

“’But I don’t want to change the plans!’ she exclaimed as he stormed out of the room” (322).

Citation

Use only the page number if the paper only cites one source. Use author and page number if more than one source is used. (If no author is given, use the first word of the works cited entry.)

A bibliographic entry must be included with every literary paper.

Williams, Tennessee. The Glass Menagerie. New York: New Directions Publishing, 1999.

Perrine, ed. Literature: Structure, Sound and Sense, fifth ed. San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1988.

Lunsford, Andrea, ed. The St. Martin’s Handbook. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2008.