Learn how to introduce borrowed material
 

Several skills are required to include borrowed material (and here I'm talking about actual quotations rather than paraphrases). One skill involves learning how to weave quoted material within your own sentence structure. Integrate quotes so that borrowed material may fortify your argument, to show readers that both you and the experts are in agreement (or, on occasion, in dispute) about your major points.

For example, consider these two examples (borrowed from the Little, Brown Handbook, 5th edition, page 558):

1.  One editor disagrees with this view and "a good reporter does not fail to separate opinions from facts" (Lyman 52).

2.  One editor disagrees with this view, maintaining that "a good reporter does not fail to separate opinions from facts" (Lyman 52).

The skill demonstrated here is contextualizing quotations. As the Little, Brown Handbook notes: "Even when it does not conflict with your own sentence structure, borrowed material will be ineffective if you merely dump it in readers' laps without explaining how you intend it to be understood."

And because readers probably won't know the specific expertise an author you might be quoting possesses, you should also use a signal phrase to provide the credentials of the expert you are about to quote. In the signal phrase, simply provide enough information for your readers so that they may see exactly why it is that you are borrowing from this expert.

Lastly, you should edit your quote to reduce unnecessary material and just use the essential part of the borrowed material. To do so, you should be aware of the ellipsis and brackets punctuation marks. These allow you to whittle a quote down to just its essentials.

For our expository paper assignment, here's an example:

Many people today are advocating online courses for many of today's students.

But English Professor Jerry Farber of San Diego State University argues in his essay

"The Student and the Screen" that "the classroom offers a learning environment that is

whole, rich, resonant, multi-dimensional, alive and full of surprises: real people

in real time and real space" (1). By this definition, a good college education cannot

happen online.