Making Quotations Fit Grammatically
It is important to fit anything that you
are quoting into the grammar of your own sentences. If you want
to quote only part of a sentence from the text you are discussing,
you must add words of your own, outside the quotation marks, to
make it a complete sentence. If you are quoting a complete sentence,
be sure that any words of your own that you add do not make it
ungrammatical. Here is a part of a sentence from an essay on Dante's
Inferno that has not been fit smoothly into the writer's
own sentence:
While the gluttons writhe in the slime
and garbage, they are tormented by Cerberus, who "barking
thunder on these dead souls, who wished that they were deaf"
(Inferno, Canto VI, ll. 32-33). Since they wallowed in
food and drink in life and produced nothing but garbage, in death
they wallow in garbage and get nothing to eat or drink.
By removing the first "who" or
by adding "was," the sentence with its quotation will
read more grammatically:
While the gluttons writhe in the slime
and garbage, they are tormented by Cerberus, "barking thunder
on these dead souls, who wished that they were deaf" (Inferno,
ll. 32-33). Since they wallowed in food and drink in life and
produced nothing but garbage, in death they wallow in garbage
and get nothing to eat or drink.
OR
While the gluttons writhe in the slime
and garbage, they are tormented by Cerberus, who was "barking
thunder on these dead souls, who wished that they were deaf"
(Inferno, Canto VI, ll. 32-33). Since they wallowed in
food and drink in life and produced nothing but garbage, in death
they wallow in garbage and get nothing to eat or drink.
Here is another example of a poorly integrated
quotation; it is a complete sentence plus part of another sentence
whose subject and verb have been omitted. The result is very difficult
to understand:
One punishment similar to the sin being
punished is the one for those who misused their wealth while they
were on earth. As Dante says, "the sound of their own screams,
straining their chests, they rolled enormous weights/ and when
they met and clashed against each other/ they turned to push the
other way" (Inferno, Canto VII, ll. 25-29). Because
they fought with one another on earth over wealth, they clash
in hell, punishing one another.
We can fix the problem by omitting the
first part of the quotation, or by adding words:
One punishment similar to the sin being
punished is the one for those who misused their wealth while they
were on earth. As Dante describes these sinners, "straining
their chests, they rolled enormous weights/ and when they met
and clashed against each other/ they turned to push the other
way" (Inferno, Canto VII, ll. 25-29). Because they
fought with one another on earth over wealth, they clash in hell,
punishing one another.
OR
One punishment similar to the sin being
punished is the one for those who misused their wealth while they
were on earth. As Dante says, these sinners move to "the
sound of their own screams," and, "straining their chests,
they rolled enormous weights/ and when they met and clashed against
each other/ they turned to push the other way" (Inferno,
Canto VII, ll. 25-29). Because they fought with one another on
earth over wealth, they clash in hell, punishing one another.