FORMAL AND INFORMAL Honors
English 10
SENTENCE QUOTATION
REVIEW KEY WORD AND PHRASE
1. When we did the KWPQ, we were
talking about words and phrases ?
What’s a phrase?
2. Where does the citation belong?
3. What belongs in the citation?
4. Where does the end punctuation
(period/exclamation
point/question mark) belong?
THE FORMAL SENTENCE
INTRODUCTION
THE STEPS (FORMAL)
1. Choose a complete sentence to quote from your text,
including the citation.
“‘It was a witch,’ said Kay” (White 55 ).
2. The words (your words) introducing a sentence quotation
must be a complete sentence. They should say something
that you want your reader to see or understand about the
quotation.
Kay’s statement in the closing sentence of chapter six supports the
concept of the gore-crow as a symbol of Morgause
3. Formal Sentence Quotations introductions are followed by a
colon (:)
Kay’s statement in the closing sentence of chapter six supports the
concept of the gore-crow as a symbol of Morgause: “‘It was a
witch,’ said Kay” (White 55).
FORMAL SENTENCE QUOTATION
Why? What does a colon do?
The colon indicates that what follows it is an
explanation or elaboration of what precedes
it.
(A colon often won’t follow a
____ or ____)
Preposition
or a Conjunction (or interjection)
FORMAL
Kay’s statement in the
closing sentence of
Chapter 6 supports the
concept of the gore-crow
as a symbol of Morgause :
“‘It was a witch,’ said Kay”
(White 55).
NOTE: Single quotation marks are
ONLY used for dialogue/quotation
within another quotation.
THE INFORMAL SENTENCE
INTRODUCTION
BREAKING DOWN THE INFORMAL
1. The informal starts with a dependent clause introduction
stating either the speaker or the author as narrator.
It’s followed by a comma.
When White writes,
When Arthur says,
2. We quote a full sentence of text, followed by another comma
inside the quotation marks. The intro and quotation serve as
one large dependent clause.
When White writes, “The weather-cock was a carrion crow, with an
arrow in its beak to point to the wind,”
3. All of that is followed by a sentence of your writing that
analyzes the quotation, followed by the citation.
When White writes, “The weather-cock was a carrion crow, with an
arrow in its beak to point to the wind” (214), he reveals a connection
between the crow that took Arthur’s arrow in Book I and the Orkney
boys.
WITHOUT ALL THAT TEXT ON THE SLIDE…
Par t 1: (dependent clause, followed by comma)
When White writes, When you’re quoting narration
When Arthur says, When you’re quoting dialogue
States that the quotation is either narration or dialogue
Add par t 2: (full sentence quotation, followed by comma)
When White writes, “The weather-cock was a carrion crow, with an
arrow in its beak to point to the wind,
Add par t 3: (FULL sentence of your writing)
When White writes, “The weather-cock was a carrion crow, with an
arrow in its beak to point to the wind” (214), he reveals a connection
between the crow that took Arthur’s arrow in Book I and the Orkney
boys.
INFORMAL EXAMPLE
When White writes, “The weather-cock
was a carrion crow, with an arrow in its
beak to point to the wind” (214), he
reveals a connection between the crow
that took Arthur’s arrow in Book I and
the Orkney boys.
Special Note: except in extremely rare
circumstances, commas always go inside
quotation marks.
FUN! FUN!
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ELLIPSIS AND FUN!
FUN!
FUN!
FUN!
BRACKETS FUN!
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FUN! FUN!
ELLIPSIS
The ellipsis may be used in sentence
quotations to omit quotation content.
What is an ellipsis…?
Omits unnecessary
content from your
source material.
Why do we use them?
Everything you quote should be discussed, so if we’re
not going to discuss it, don’t quote it.
ELLIPSIS EXAMPLE
When Janson yells, “Bring me your fourth
and fifth children, . . . and I will educate
them with my sword,” the king reveals
his lust for killing (Brown 32).
PUT A SPACE BETWEEN EACH PERIOD.
…
. . .
Original quotation: “Bring me your fourth and fifth children, the ones
that were not here last night when we wanted supper but were away
in Waterloo, and I will educate them with my sword.”
BRACKETS
Brackets look like this [X] and are used for three distinctly
different purposes:
…to add a word for enhancing sentence structure’s fluency
“He felt sorry for [his] mother, the sad and useless wreck that she
was.”
…to add a SHORT fact to clarify the meaning.
“This nigromancer [Merlyn], would you believe it, by means of
his infernal arts, succeeded in putting the treacherous Uther
Pendragon inside our Granny's Castle.“
…to change grammar (tense, word endings, etc.) for blending
purposes (Think KWPQ)
He never understands what “[is] expected of him.”
Used to be “was expected of him.”
GUIDELINES FOR USE OF BRACKETS
When adding a word or a fact,
nothing is removed from the author’s
sentence.
When changing the grammar, the
author’s words are removed and
replaced by your words.
PRACTICE! Introductions
Practice
