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The Annoyances
Because I鈥檓 not here to tell you rules, decrees, or laws, it makes sense to call my classifications annoyances. In the examples that follow, I wrote all of the annoying examples myself, but all
the examples I use of good writing come from actual student papers in first year composition
classes at my university; I have their permission to quote them.
Armadillo Roadkill: dropping in a quotation without introducing it first.
Everyone in the car hears it: buh-BUMP. The driver insists to the passengers, 鈥淏ut that armadillo鈥擨 didn鈥檛 see it! It just came out of nowhere!鈥
Sadly, a poorly introduced quotation can lead readers to a similar exclamation: 鈥淚t just came out of nowhere!鈥 And though readers probably won鈥檛 experience the same level of grief and regret when surprised by a quotation as opposed to an armadillo, I submit that there鈥檚 a kinship between the experiences: both involve a normal, pleasant activity (driving; reading) stopped suddenly short by an unexpected barrier (a sudden armadillo; a sudden quotation).
Here鈥檚 an example of what I鈥檓 talking about:
We should all be prepared with a backup plan if a zombie invasion occurs. 鈥淯nlike its human counterparts, an army of zombies is completely independent of support鈥 (Brooks 155). Preparations should be made in the following areas. . . .
Did you notice how the quotation is dropped in without any kind of warning? (Buh-BUMP.)
The Fix: The easiest way to effectively massage in quotations is by purposefully returning to each one in your draft to see if you set the stage for your readers鈥攐ften, by signaling that a quote is about to come, stating who the quote came from, and showing how your readers should interpret it. In the above example, that could be done by introducing the quotation with something like this (new text bolded):
We should all be prepared with a backup plan if a zombie invasion occurs. Max Brooks suggests a number of ways to prepare for zombies鈥 particular traits, though he underestimates the ability of humans to survive in harsh environments. For example, he writes, 鈥淯nlike its human counterparts, an army of zombies is completely independent of support鈥 (155). His shortsightedness could have a number of consequences. . . .
In this version, I know a quotation is coming (鈥淔or example鈥), I know it鈥檚 going to be written by Max Brooks, and I know I鈥檓 being asked to read the quote rather skeptically (鈥渉e underestimates鈥). The sentence with the quotation itself also now begins with a 鈥渢ag鈥 that eases us into it (鈥渉e writes鈥).
Here鈥檚 an actual example from Alexsandra. Notice the way she builds up to the quotation and then explains it:
In the first two paragraphs, the author takes a defensive position when explaining the perception that the public has about scientists by saying that 鈥渢here is anxiety that scientists lack both wisdom and social responsibility and are so motivated by ambition 鈥 and 鈥渟cientists are repeatedly referred to as 鈥榩laying God鈥欌 (Wolpert 345). With this last sentence especially, his tone seems to demonstrate how he uses the ethos appeal to initially set a tone of someone that is tired of being misunderstood.
Alexsandra prepares us for the quotation, quotes, and then analyzes it. I love it. This isn鈥檛 a hard and fast rule鈥擨鈥檝e seen it broken by the best of writers, I admit鈥攂ut it鈥檚 a wise standard to hold yourself to unless you have a reason not to.
Dating Spider-Man: starting or ending a paragraph with a quotation
An annoyance that鈥檚 closely connected to Armadillo Roadkill is the tendency writers sometimes have of starting or ending paragraphs with quotations. This isn鈥檛 technically wrong, and there are situations when the effect of surprise is what you鈥檙e going for. But often, a paragraph-beginning or paragraph-closing quotation feels rushed, unexplained, disjointed.
It鈥檚 like dating Spider-Man. You鈥檙e walking along with him and he says something remarkably interesting鈥攂ut then he tilts his head, hearing something far away, and suddenly shoots a web onto the nearest building and zooms away through the air. As if you had just read an interesting quotation dangling at the end of a paragraph, you wanted to hear more of his opinion, but it鈥檚 too late鈥攈e鈥檚 already moved on. Later, he suddenly jumps off a balcony and is by your side again, and he starts talking about something you don鈥檛 understand. You鈥檙e con- fused because he just dropped in and expected you to understand the context of what was on his mind at that moment, much like when readers step into a paragraph that begins with a quotation. Here鈥檚 an example:
[End of a preceding paragraph:] . . . Therefore, the evidence clearly suggests that
we should be exceptionally careful about deciding when and where to rest.
鈥淲hen taking a nap, always rest your elbow on your desk and keep your arm perpendicular to your desktop鈥 (Piven and Borgenicht 98). After all, consider the following scenario. . . .
There鈥檚 a perfectly good reason why this feels odd鈥攚hich should feel familiar after reading about the Armadillo Roadkill annoyance above. When you got to the quotation in the second paragraph, you didn鈥檛 know what you were supposed to think about it; there was no guidance.
The Fix is the same: in the majority of situations, readers appreciate being guided to and
led away from a quotation by the writer doing the quoting. Readers get a sense of
pleasure from the safe flow of hearing how to read an upcoming quotation, reading
it, and then being told one way to interpret it. Prepare, quote, analyze.
I mentioned above that there can be situations where starting a paragraph with a quotation can have a strong effect. Personally, I usually enjoy this most at the beginning of essays or the beginning of sections鈥攍ike in this example from the very beginning of Jennifer鈥檚 essay:
鈥淣othing is ever simple: Racism and nobility can exist in the same man, hate and love in the same woman, fear and loyalty, compromise and idealism, all the yin-yang dichotomies that make the human species so utterly confounding, yet so utterly fascinating鈥 (Hunter). The hypocrisy and complexity that Stephen Hunter from the Washington Post describes is the basis of the movie Crash (2004).
Instantly, her quotation hooks me. It doesn鈥檛 feel thoughtless, like it would feel if I continued to be whisked to quotations without preparation throughout the essay. But please don鈥檛 overdo it; any quotation that opens an essay or section ought to be integrally related to your topic (as is Jennifer鈥檚), not just a cheap gimmick.
Uncle Barry and his Encyclopedia of Useless Information: using too many quotations
in a row
You probably know someone like this: a person (for me, my Uncle Barry) who constantly tries to impress me with how much he knows about just about everything. I might casually bring up something in the news (鈥淲ow, these health care debates are getting really heated, aren鈥檛 they?鈥) and then find myself barraged by all of Uncle Barry鈥檚 ideas on government- sponsored health care鈥攚hich then drifts into a story about how his cousin Maxine died in an underfunded hospice center, which had a parking lot that he could have designed better, which reminds him of how good he is at fixing things, just like the garage door at my parents鈥 house, which probably only needs a little. You get the idea. I might even think to myself, 鈥淲ait, I want to know more about that topic, but you鈥檙e zooming on before you contextualize your information at all.鈥
This is something like reading an essay that relies too much on quotations. Readers get the feeling that they鈥檙e moving from one quotation to the next without ever quite getting to hear the real point of what the author wants to say, never getting any time to form an opinion about
the claims. In fact, this often makes it sound as if the author has almost no authority
at all. You may have been annoyed by paragraphs like this before:
Addressing this issue, David M. Potter comments, 鈥淲hether Seward meant this literally or not, it was in fact a singularly accurate forecast for territorial Kansas鈥 (199). Of course, Potter鈥檚 view is contested, even though he claims, 鈥淪oon, the Missourians began to perceive the advantages of operating without publicity鈥 (200). Interestingly, 鈥淭he election was bound to be irregular in any case鈥 (201).
Wait鈥攈uh? This author feels like Uncle Barry to me: grabbing right and left for topics (or quotes) in an effort to sound authoritative.
The Fix is to return to each quotation and decide why it鈥檚 there and then massage it in accordingly. If you just want to use a quote to cite a fact, then consider paraphrasing or summarizing the source material (which I find is usually harder than it sounds but is usually worth it for the smoothness my paragraph gains). But if you quoted because you want to draw attention to the source鈥檚 particular phrasing, or if you want to respond to something you agree with or disagree with in the source, then consider taking the time to surround each quotation with guidance to your readers about what you want them to think about that
quote.
In the following passage, I think Jessica demonstrates a balance between source and
analysis well. Notice that she only uses a single quotation, even though she surely
could have chosen more. But instead, Jessica relies on her instincts and remains the
primary voice of authority in the passage:
Robin Toner鈥檚 article, 鈥淔eminist Pitch by a Democrat named Obama,鈥 was written a week after the video became public and is partially a response to it. She writes, 鈥淭he Obama campaign is, in some ways, subtly marketing its candidate as a post-feminist man, a generation beyond the gender conflicts of the boomers.鈥 Subtly is the key word. Obama is a passive character throughout the video, never directly addressing the camera. Rather, he is shown indirectly through speeches, intimate conversations with supporters and candid interaction with family. This creates a sense of intimacy, which in turn creates a feeling of trust.
Toner鈥檚 response to the Obama video is like a diving board that Jessica bounces off of before she gets to the really interesting stuff: the pool (her own observations). A bunch of diving boards lined up without a pool (tons of quotes with no analysis) wouldn鈥檛 please anyone鈥攅xcept maybe Uncle Barry.
Am I in the Right Movie? failing to integrate a quotation into the grammar of the
preceding sentence
When reading drafts of my writing, this is a common experience: I start to read a sentence that seems interesting and normal, with everything going just the way I expect it to. But then the unexpected happens: a quotation blurts itself into the sentence in a way that doesn鈥檛 fit with the grammar that built up to quotation. It feels like sitting in a movie theater, everything going as expected, when suddenly the opening credits start for a movie I didn鈥檛 plan to see. Here are two examples of what I鈥檓 talking about. Read them out loud, and you鈥檒l see how suddenly wrong they feel.
- Therefore, the author warns that a zombie鈥檚 vision 鈥渁re no different than those of a normal human鈥 (Brooks 6).
- Sheila Anne Barry advises that 鈥淗ave you ever wondered what it鈥檚 like to walk on a tightrope鈥攎any feet up in the air?鈥 (50)
In the first example, the quoter鈥檚 build-up to the quotation uses a sin- gular subject鈥a zombie鈥檚 vision鈥攚hich, when paired with the quotation, is annoyingly matched with the plural verb are. It would be much less jolting to write, 鈥渁 zombie鈥檚 vision is,鈥 which makes the subject and verb agree. In the second example, the quoter builds up to the quotation with a third-person, declarative independent clause: Sheila Anne Barry advises. But then the quotation switches into second person鈥you鈥攁nd unexpectedly asks a question鈥攃ompletely different from the expectation that was built up by the first part of the sentence.
The Fix is usually easy: you read your essay out loud to some- one else, and if you stumble as you enter a quotation, there鈥檚 prob- ably something you can adjust in your lead-in sentence to make the two fit together well. Maybe you鈥檒l need to choose a different subject to make it fit with the quote鈥檚 verb (reader instead of readers; each instead of all), or maybe you鈥檒l have to scrap what you first wrote and start over. On occasion you鈥檒l even feel the need to transparently modify the quotation by adding an [s] to one of its verbs, always being certain to use square brackets to show that you adjusted something in the quotation. Maybe you鈥檒l even find a way to quote a shorter part of the quotation and squeeze it into the context of a sentence that is mostly your own, a trick that can have a positive effect on readers, who like smooth water slides more than they like bumpy slip-and-slides. Jennifer does this well in the following sentence, for example:
In Crash, no character was allowed to 鈥渆scape his own hypocrisy鈥 (Muller), and the film itself emphasized that the reason there is so much racial tension among strangers is because of the personal issues one cannot deal with alone.
She saw a phrase that she liked in Muller鈥檚 article, so she found a way to work it in smoothly, without the need for a major break in her thought. Let鈥檚 put ourselves in Jennifer鈥檚 shoes for a moment: it鈥檚 possible that she started drafting this sentence using the plural subject characters, writing 鈥淚n Crash, no characters were allowed鈥 But then, imagine she looked back at the quote from Muller and saw that it said 鈥渆scape his own hypocrisy,鈥 which was a clue that she had to change the first part of her sentence to match the singular construction of the quote.
I Can鈥檛 Find the Stupid Link: no connection between the first letter of a parenthetical citation and the first letter of a works cited entry
You鈥檝e been in this situation: you鈥檙e on a website that seems like it might be interesting and you want to learn more about it. But the home page doesn鈥檛 tell you much, so you look for an 鈥淎bout Us鈥 or 鈥淢ore Information鈥 or 鈥淔AQ鈥 link. But no matter where you search鈥擳op of page? Bottom? Left menu?鈥攜ou can鈥檛 find the stupid link. This is usually the fault of web designers, who don鈥檛 always take the time to test their sites as much as they should with actual users. The communication failure here is simple: you鈥檙e used to finding certain kinds of basic information in the places people usually put it. If it鈥檚 not there, you鈥檙e annoyed.
Similarly, a reader might see a citation and have a quick internal question about
it: What journal was this published in? When was it published? Is this an article I could
find online to skim myself? This author has a sexy last name鈥擨 wonder what his first name is? Just like when you look for a link to more information, this reader has a simple, quick question that he or she expects to answer easily. And the most basic way for readers to answer those questions (when they鈥檙e reading a work written in APA or MLA style) is (1) to look at the information in the citation, and (2) skim the references or works cited section alphabetically, looking for the first letter in the citation. There鈥檚 an assumption that the first letter of a citation will be the letter to look for in the list of works cited.
In short, the following may annoy readers who want to quickly learn more about the citation:
[Essay Text:] A respected guide on the subject suggests, 鈥淚f possible, always take the high ground and hold it鈥 (The Zombie Survival Guide 135).
[Works Cited Page:] Brooks, Max. The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead. New York: Three Rivers, 2003. Print.
The reader may wonder when The Zombie Survival Guide was published and flip back to
the works cited page, but the parenthetical citation sends her straight to the 窜鈥檚 in the works cited list (because initial 础鈥檚 and 罢丑别鈥檚 are ignored when alphabetizing). However, the complete works cited entry is actually
with the 叠鈥檚 (where it belongs).
The Fix is to make sure that the first word of the works cited entry is the word you use in
your in-text citation, every time. If the works cited entry starts with Brooks, use
(Brooks) in the essay text.
Citations not including last names may seem to complicate this advice, but they all
follow the same basic concept. For instance, you might have:
- A citation that only lists a title. For instance, your citation might read (鈥淕ray Wolf General Information鈥). In this case, the assumption is that the citation can be found under the G section of the works cited page. Leah cites her paraphrase of a source with no author in the following way, indicating that I should head to the G鈥檚 if I want to learn more about her source:
Alaska is the only refuge that is left for the wolves in the United States, and once that is gone, they will more than likely become extinct in this country (鈥淕ray Wolf General Information鈥).
- A citation that only lists a page number. Maybe the citation simply says (25). That implies that somewhere in the sur- rounding text, the essay writer must have made it stupendously clear what name or title to look up in the works cited list. This happens a lot, since it鈥檚 common to introduce a quotation by naming the person it came from, in which case it would be repetitive to name that author again in the citation.
- A quotation without a citation at all. This happens when you cite a work that is both A) from a web page that doesn鈥檛 number the pages or paragraphs and B) is named in the text surrounding the quotation. Readers will assume that the author is named nearby. Stephanie wisely leaves off any citation in the example below, where it鈥檚 already clear that I should head to the 翱鈥檚 on the works cited page to find information about this source, a web page written
by Opotow:
To further this point, Opotow notes, 鈥淒on鈥檛 imagine you鈥檒l be unscathed by the methods you use. The end may justify the means. . . . But there鈥檚 a price to pay, and the price does tend to be oneself.鈥
I Swear I Did Some Research: dropping in a citation without making it clear what information
came from that source
Let鈥檚 look in depth at this potentially annoying passage from a hypothetical student paper:
It鈥檚 possible that a multidisciplinary approach to understanding the universe will open new doors of understanding. If theories from sociology, communication, and philosophy joined with physics, the possibilities would be boundless. This would inspire new research, much like in the 1970s when scientists changed their focus from grand-scale theories of the universe to the small concerns of quantum physics (Hawking 51).
In at least two ways, this is stellar material. First, the author is actually voicing a point of view; she sounds knowledgeable, strong. Second, and more to the point of this chapter, the author includes a citation, showing that she knows that ethical citation standards ask authors to cite paraphrases and summaries鈥攏ot just quotations.
But on the other hand, which of these three sentences, exactly, came from Hawking鈥檚 book? Did Hawking claim that physics experts should join up with folks in other academic disciplines, or is that the student writer? In other words, at which point does the author鈥檚 point of view meld into material taken specifically from Hawking?
I recognize that there often aren鈥檛 clean answers to a question like that. What we read and what we know sometimes meld together so unnoticeably that we don鈥檛 know which ideas and pieces of information are 鈥渙urs鈥 and which aren鈥檛. Discussing 鈥減atchwriting,鈥 a term used to describe writing that blends words and phrases from sources with words and phrases we came up with ourselves, scholar Rebecca Moore Howard writes, 鈥淲hen I believe I am not patchwriting, I am simply doing it so expertly that the seams are no longer visible鈥攐r I am doing it so unwittingly that I cannot cite my sources鈥 (91). In other words, all the moves we make when writing came from somewhere else at some point, whether we realize it or not. Yikes. But remember our main purpose here: to not look annoying when using sources. And most of your instructors aren鈥檛 going to say, 鈥淚 understand that I couldn鈥檛 tell the difference between your ideas and your source鈥檚 because we quite naturally patchwrite all the time. That鈥檚 fine with me. Party on!鈥 They鈥檙e much more likely to imagine that you plopped in a few extra citations as a way of defensively saying, 鈥淚 swear I did some research! See? Here鈥檚 a citation right here! Doesn鈥檛 that prove I worked really hard?鈥
The Fix: Write the sentences preceding the citation with specific words and phrases that will
tell readers what information came from where. Like this (bolded words are new):
It鈥檚 possible that a multidisciplinary approach to understanding the universe will open new doors of understanding. I believe that if theories from sociology, communication, and philosophy joined with physics, the
possibilities would be boundless. This would inspire new research, much like the changes Stephen Hawking describes happening in the 1970s when scientists changed their focus from grand-scale theories of the
universe to the small concerns of quantum physics (51).
Perhaps these additions could still use some stylistic editing for wordiness and flow,
but the source-related job is done: readers know exactly which claims the essay writer
is making and which ones Hawking made in his book. The last sentence and only the
last sentence summarizes the ideas Hawking describes on page 51 of his book.
One warning: you鈥檒l find that scholars in some disciplines (especially in the sciences and social sciences) use citations in the way I just warned you to avoid. You might see sentences like this one, from page 64 of Glenn Gordon Smith, Ana T. Torres-Ayala, and Allen J. Hein- del鈥檚 article in the Journal of Distance Education:
Some researchers have suggested 鈥渃urriculum鈥 as a key element in the design of web-based courses (Berge, 1998; Driscoll, 1998; Meyen, Tangen, & Lian, 1999; Wiens & Gunter, 1998).
Whoa鈥攖hat鈥檚 a lot of citations. Remember how the writer of my earlier example cited Stephen Hawking because she summarized his ideas? Well, a number of essays describing the results of experiments, like this one, use citations with a different purpose, citing previous studies whose general conclusions support the study described in this new paper, like building blocks. It鈥檚 like saying to your potentially skeptical readers, 鈥淟ook, you might be wondering if I鈥檓 a quack. But I can prove I鈥檓 not! See, all these other people published in similar areas! Are you going to pick fights with all of them too?鈥 You might have noticed as well that these citations are in APA format, reflecting the standards of the social sciences journal this passage was published in. Well, in this kind of context AP础鈥檚 requirement to cite the year of a study makes a lot of sense too鈥攁fter all, the older a study, the less likely it is to still be relevant.
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