27 September 2017
“The Art of Quoting” Response

Picking out and integrating quotes effectively is a concept rather new to me. I do not recall integrating quotes until sometime in 11th grade, but I did not get to a novice level with it until writing my senior research paper senior year. After reading pages 42-51, in They Say, I Say, by Graff and Birkenstein, I feel like I have more of an idea of how to effectively integrate quotes.
One of the greatest lessons that I have taken form this piece is found on pg. 44, when Graff and Birkenstein bring up the “back-and-forth” relation between quotes you select and your argument. They assert that one changes their argument as the process for writing a paper develops, and in such a process many quotes that seemed amazing at the start crumble to be irrelevant. I find this to be one of the most frustrating things when I am writing. Spending all this time to find a “perfect” quote, just to have it be a non-factor by the time the paper is due. Sometimes I could get away with throwing extraneous quotes in my paper in high school, but I have quickly learned that that will not be the case in college.
One of the biggest trends that I am noticing with this book, is that of comparison of lessons to scenarios in real life. On page 44, Graff and Birkenstein, note that their colleague Steve Benton refers to unintroduced or unexplained quotes as “hit and run” quotes. They compare just grabbing a quote, to a driver who speeds away from a car accident and “avoids taking responsibility”. This helps paint a picture in my mind of why using quotes the wrong way is bad. If you use quotes badly, you just take from the author, sometimes do not credit them properly, and do not leave your input to help the argument come along.
However, I the best way to integrate quotes is the metaphor that Graff and Birkenstein describe on page 46, “the sandwich method”. The authors present proper use of quotations, as a sandwich. Introducing them serves as the top slice of bread, the quote the filling, and the explanation of the quote, the bottom piece of bread. In establishing this metaphor, Graff and Birkenstein compare an often-daunting writing skill with a friendly and well know object like a sandwich and the process that goes into making it. Most people can identify if you miss one part of a sandwich, so it is a metaphor that is quite relatable to the public.