Imagine one day I walk into class and say, “Happy Birthday! I brought you a chocolate cake.” Then, I take out a bag of flour, a bottle of milk, a cup of sugar, a few eggs, and a few bars of chocolate…handing all of them to you separately. You would be unimpressed. I wouldn’t have made much effort to present you with a nice gift.
I should have taken the time to combine all the ingredients together in an effective, appealing way. Well, your readers can feel the same way when you just DUMP a direct quotation from the text into the middle of your writing without any set-up.
To add sophistication and style to your writing, you should work to integrate (or blend) direct quotations from a text into your own sentence structure. In this post I hope to give you some tools that will help you combine other people’s words with your own in a grammatically correct and appealing manner. The only real way to master this skill is to practice in your own writing, but these resources are a good place to begin developing your understanding of this ability.
Integrating Quotations with Style Handout
Blending Quotations (with a self-quiz)
More Video Explanations of how to BLEND quotations successfully (pick a few to view):
Blending Quotations and Avoiding Quote Dumps @PressEnglish
Mr. Cowan Explains Blending Quotations
Blending Quotations by Colin Welch
Choosing and Using Quotations by Schmoop
Using Quotes Effectively by Schmoop
Blending Quotations @MrBruff (advanced explanation)
Embedding Quotes like a boss (advanced explanation)
