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1. Short quotations
(fewer than three lines of poetry or four lines of prose) are indicated
by quotation marks, and are typed normally, as part of your double-spaced
paragraph. Use slashes and capital letters to indicate the line divisions
in poetry.
Ex. 1A:
In the Song of Songs, the speaker (or Solomon) uses imagery
and metaphors from the sensual world to praise the attributes of his
beloved: "How much more delightful your love than wine, / Your
ointments more fragrant / Than any spice!" (Song of Songs 4.10).
Long quotations should be set off from the main body
of your paragraph by indentation, but these should be double-spaced, just
as the main body of your text is double-spaced. Indent any prose quotation
long enough to occupy four or more typed lines (that's about 50 or fewer
words), and with poetry indent any quotation of more than three lines.
Be sure to type a long quotation of poetry line-for-line, just as
it appears in the original text. In other words, do not convert
it to paragraph-form.
Ex. 1B:
In the Song of Songs, the
speaker uses a series of similes to describe different physical
features of his beloved:
Your eyes are like doves
Behind your veil.
Your hair is like a flock of goats
Streaming down Mount Gilead.
(4.1)
The particular similes that the speaker uses here are significant
because they give us clues to his overall purpose in this poem.
When you indent quotations, do not use quotation marks. The indentation
itself is enough to distinguish your words from the words of the
writer you are quoting. Also note that when you indent this way,
the parenthetical citation goes between the two sentences and not
inside the first sentence, as in example 1A (embedded quotation).
2. All quotations should be followed by a parenthetical citation
that allows the reader to look up this passage quickly and with
ease. When quoting from the Tanakh, give chapter and verse. When
quoting from the Iliad or the Odyssey, give book and line numbers.
When quoting from anything else in one of our books or handouts,
give the page number in our course-text.
Ex.:
Odysseus has high hopes for Nausikaa; he wishes
her "a home, a husband, and harmonious / converse with him"
(Book VI, lines 193-4).
Note the end-punctuation in this example. The final period comes after the parenthesis, so
as to include the parenthetical information in the sentence to which
it belongs. Note also that the end-punctuation works differently
with embedded quotations like this one and indented quotations like
1B above. With indented quotations, the end-punctuation comes before the parenthetical citation because the reader can tell from the
indentation which sentence the parenthetical citation belongs to.
3. Unless you are dealing with parenthetical material like that
in number 2 above, always put:
periods and commas INSIDE quotation
marks and
colons and semicolons OUTSIDE quotation marks.
4. Place question
marks and exclamation marks according to context: If your whole
sentence is a question or exclamation, put the mark of punctuation
outside of the quotation marks.
Ex.:
Why does Priam appeal to Achilles' compassion?
Why does he "put [his] lips to the hands of the man who killed [his]
son" (Iliad, Book XXIV, line 591)?
If the quotation itself (but not the sentence surrounding it) is a question
or exclamation, put the punctuation mark inside the quotation marks. For
an example of this, see 1A above. Also note above that you must indicate
with square brackets any word you change from the original. And here’s
another example of a question-mark inside the quotation:
Ex.:
In Genesis, God makes personal contact with Adam,
asking him, "Where are you?" (3.9).
Note the final period, which is necessary to include the parenthesis in
the sentence to which it belongs.
5. In general,
the rule for integrating quotations into your own sentences is that
your words plus the words of the quotation must equal one complete, normally
punctuated sentence. The punctuation mark that you use between a
quotation and your own words--if any at all--depends on the context.
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