Embedding Quotes: Weaving Your Words

What it is:
Seamlessly working quotes not only into your paragraphs, but inside of your own
sentences.
Why it matters:
If you do not embed, you will have a floating quote. This means it is floating
around in your writing without being connected to your ideas.
How it works:
Embedding quotations has two elements: an intro and an exit. You must introduce
and exit your quote in a way that makes the intro, quote, and exit all one
grammatically correct sentence.
Choosing a Quote:
1. Review your annotations. Identify the strongest pieces of evidence for which
you can provide ample reasoning.
2. If the sentence is long, narrow the quote down to the most important portion of
the sentence.
Quotes do not already have to be in quotation marks in the reading- ANYTHING can
be a quote; it becomes a quote when you quote it in your paper.
Intro:
The intro to a quote connects the quote to your previous claim.
There are many ways to intro a quote. Pay careful attention to punctuation.
The easiest way is to add an introductory independent clause, with the option of
adding a subordinating conjunction directing before the quote, thus creating a
dependent clause.
Someone says,
Someone says that
Exit:
The exit connects the evidence to the first part of your reasoning and analysis.
There are many ways to exit a quote. Pay careful attention to punctuation.
The easiest way is to add a dependent clause or phrase, with the option of adding a
ing verb directly after the quote.
, which shows

, showing that

Pro Level
Alternatively, you can combine your own words and ideas into a single clause in the
intro and/or exit.
According to Ms. Bolitho, utilizing quotations will increase the analytical quality of the
writing and therefore increase the grades of students who use quotations
successfully.
The underlined portion is all one independent clause, even though it is
partially the quoted material and partially the writers own words.

Embedding Quotes: Weaving Your Words

Practice
Directions:
With your partner, you will practice embedding quotes.
In your envelope, there are three colors:
1. Blue slips have quotations
2. Green slips have intros and exits
3. Yellow slips have punctuation marks
Combine these slips to create fully embedded quotes. You will have a blue-greenblue pattern for all examples. You may or may not have yellow, depending on if
punctuation is needed (see your punctuation flip charts for grammar review).
Glue your embedded quotes below. Double check punctuation!

Pro Level Practice

Select a quote from yesterdays annotation passage. Embed the quote in a
grammatical way that combines the quote with the intro or exit into a single clause
(see example on other side).