Sample Paragraph Demonstrating Quoting

          One way that living life on a low-wage salary can affect a person is to reduce the quality of that person’s sleep, which then results in wearing that person down.  First, with a low-wage salary, a person cannot afford a good place to live.  In Barbara Ehrenreich’s case, she has to take a room at the Clearview Inn, which she describes as a “rat hole” (175).  Without a window screen, the air is stuffy, and with poor window coverings, anyone walking by can see in; in addition, she can hear “TV sounds from the next room” and she can see “the light from the Dr Pepper sign on the pop machine in the parking lot” (152).  With all of this on her mind, it’s no wonder she can’t get a good night’s sleep.  Furthermore, with such a poor place to live, she is also worried about her personal safety.  She states, “I decide it’s smarter to keep all senses on ready alert.  I sleep and wake up, sleep and wake up again” (152-153).  With such poor sleep, her performance on the job will eventually have to suffer.  She even admits:

Because home life is more stressful than I have consciously acknowledged . . . [l]ittle nervous symptoms have arisen.  Sometimes I get a tummy ache after breakfast, which makes lunch dicey, and there’s no way to get through the shift without at least one major refueling.  More disturbing is the new habit of plucking away at my shirt or my khakis with whichever hand can be freed up for the task.  (162)

Clearly, poor sleep is affecting her, and it obviously would affect her job performance as well.  Indeed, she tells us, after she moves to the better Comfort Inn, that “I sleep through the night, the sick little plucking habit loses its grip.  I feel like the man in the commercials for the Holiday Inn Express who’s so refreshed by his overnight stay . . . At Wal-Mart, I get better at what I do, much better than I could ever have imagined at the beginning” (176).  Obviously, now, with better sleep, she feels her performance on the job is much improved.

Other “Rules” to Note

1.)  Normally, we do not refer to a writer using his/her first name only.  Usually, we use his/her full name in combination with his/her last name.  In this case, since Barbara Ehrenreich is telling a personal-experience story, we can use “Barbara.”  We won’t be able to do this with essay #3 however.

2.)  Normally, we use present-tense verbs when writing about someone else’s writing: “She admits that …” or “She argues that …”

3.)  Quotes within a quote: Your quotes are the “double quotes.”  Any quotes within your quote you change to ‘single quotes.’

4.)  For essay #2, you will need to “cite” summaries, paraphrases, and quotations using the page number in parentheses – e.g. (121).  You will also need to do this for essay #3 and in English 1121.

5.)  Book titles are either underlined or italicized but not both – and be consistent with your formatting.  And you need to use the complete title the first time you mention it:  Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America.  Thereafter, you can use just the main title: Nickel and Dimed.