>> Quotations
Quotations should always be part of the prcoess of working out an argument; they are not an optional add-on, but should make a specific point in your argument.
Don’t follow up a quotation by a comment merely paraphrasing it: explain to the reader what the significance of that quotation in your argument.
If you want to make a quick point, it may well be enough simply to refer to an event in the text.
When you do use quotations be careful to incorporate them into your essay properly:
i) a short quotation can usually be worked into the sense of your argument, using inverted commas
e.g. ‘Hamlet’s disillusionment with his mother’s conduct is shown by the despiaring cry in his first soliloquy, “Frailty thy name is woman!”, which implies that the noun “frailty” and the noun “woman” are synonymous. This might explain his own later conduct.’
ii) a longer quotation, especially if it constitutes more than one line, should normally be indented so that it forms a paragraph of its own. It will not then require inverted commas.
e.g. Hamlet is resigned to whatever happens to him in the final duel
and expresses this fatalism in theological terms:
There’s a divinity that shapes our ends
Rough-hew them how we will.
