A witty saying proves nothing. — Voltaire

Last time, we discussed the mechanics of using quotes. Today, we’ll talk about some ways to use them more effectively.

Introduce your quotes

Quotations serve to support your writing, giving it flavor, credibility, and authority. They do not make your points for you. Rather, they supplement and reinforce the points you’ve already made. Your goal is to stand on the shoulders of giants, as Newton said, not to hide behind them.

To ensure that you’re not throwing a quote out there to speak for you, set up the quote with an introduction, showing how it fits into your work.

Contrary to our modern reliance on outside sources, Emerson said, “I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.”

Using the simple comma to introduce a quote often sounds tinny, such as above. In such cases, introduce the quote with a colon.

However, Emerson was not so fond of relying on outside sources to strengthen your arguments: “I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.”

This technique is effective, frankly, because it drops the conventional “said” and rushes straight to the point. It cuts to the chase, so to speak. Be sure to vary your methods of introduction, as to not sound repetitive.

Use only the best words

Sometimes, you don’t want to use the whole quotation. Maybe the verb tense is wrong, or the phrasing is just kludgy. Good news: You don’t have to use every word. You can use ellipses to omit words and phrases that sound out of place, or just lift out the salient words and drop them into your own. Consider the following quote:

The wisdom of the wise and the experience of the ages is preserved into perpetuity by a nation’s proverbs, fables, folk sayings and quotations. — William Feather

If I were to use that in this article, I clearly don’t care one wit about “proverbs, fables, [or] folk sayings.” So I would replace them as such:

The wisdom of the wise and the experience of the ages is preserved into perpetuity by . . . quotations. — William Feather

(Unfortunately, there’s not a lot I can do about the horrendous subject-verb agreement. Changing “is” to “[are]” would distort the quote, and inserting “(sic) ” is distracting, so I let it stand.)

Going further, I can use even less of the quote:

Feather says that quotations preserve the “wisdom of the wise and the experience of the ages.”

Or to the extreme:

According to Feather, quotations are records of a culture’s “wisdom” and “experience.”

However, that technique is best kept to an extremely rare usage. It has much potential for distortion and, due to the abundance of punctuation, could be distracting to the reader. Given the case above, it is best to simply paraphrase the quote rather than lift out two common nouns.

Use authoritative voices

I love quotations because it is a joy to find thoughts one might have, beautifully expressed with much authority by someone recognized wiser than oneself. —Marlene Dietrich

It is best to use sources that are easily recognized by your audience. An unfamiliar voice will do nothing to support you, as they don’t align your position with an expert. Quoting Churchhill is good; Roach, not so much, unfortunately.

If you’ve found that perfect quote that really sells your point, and you’ve just got to use it, paraphrase the speaker. Take, for example, the eminently quotable Dorothy Parker. Often acerbic, Parker embodies the very best in language. Unfortunately, outside of academia, her name doesn’t go very far. So, rather than attributing her quotes to Dorothy Parker, you might put them in the mouth of “a well-known writer and poet.”

Paraphrase

Though it might seem antithetical to speak of paraphrasing in a discussion of quotes, sometimes it has to be done. If the quote is so long as to require being set out in a block, or the wording is just so horrendous as to bring down the rest of your work, paraphrase it. But be very careful not to distort its meaning! Make sure you understand the quote and its context, then rewrite it in such a way as to preserve the speaker’s intent and support your own point.

Related Posts

• He said, she said: Dealing with quotes