Jaidin Fuentes
Journal #4
I believe the biggest point I got from the passage was not to over explain a piece of text. I’ve been taught since little how to add quotes and explain them to the reader to help support your thesis. However, I’ve never been warned much about the negative effects of over explaining or over analyzing a quote. The only real situation that is necessary to over explain is like the author says, “Quotations that may be hard for readers to process: quotations that are long and complex, that are filled with details or jargon, or that contain hidden complexities” (Gerald Graff, They Say/ I Say, 2024, W. W. Norton & Company, Page 54). Keeping this in mind, I plan on trying my best not to over explain my quotes and only do so if they call for such an action. I also found the technique of mixing the authors words with your own. I believe this makes the reader get the sense that the author and author of the quote are on the same page. This can help to empathizes key words and phrases to the reader to help them understand you better. Therefore leading to a more positive interaction with your piece of writing.
I found most of this chapter helpful, but mainly I think the templates are extremely helpful for me. The quotation sandwich was really interesting to me, I had never thought to quote like that before. I feel like I struggle with knowing how much or how little to analyze the quote I’ve chosen. “It is better to risk being overly explicit about what you take a quotation to mean than to leave the quotation dangling and your readers in doubt” (top of p. 55).
It’s interesting to me that it seems like most people don’t add enough quotes to their writing. I had never thought of that, but I probably do that as well. (p47, par2)
I think I can, unfortunately, relate to explaining a quote insufficiently just because I don’t totally understand it. (p48, par1)
Note that as the text changes and grows, you may need to replace quotes because they no longer fit (p49, par1)
Make sure to introduce the person that the quote comes from, then the quote, then explain the importance of the quote to you, as well as your interpretation of it. (p50-51, par3-1)
Follow the quote with an explanation of the quote (p52, par1)
Create mixes of the quoter’s words and your own (p54, par1)
It is better to over-explain than under-explain (p55, par1)
I liked and thought it was helpful of the example of “make a quotation sandwich”. I also felt this paragraph gave a good explanation, “Finding relevant quotations is only part of your job; you also need to present them in a way that makes their relevance and meaning clear to your readers. Since quotations do not speak for themselves, you need to build a frame around them in which you do that speaking for them.” page 49
As an introduction to They Say I Say some key details stood out to me. The first of which is what a quote really should be in academic writing. A quote should be thought-provoking, something that sticks with the reader, whether it be in the form of a statistic or a controversial idea. “When you’re engaged in the writing and revising process, there is usually a great deal of back and forth between the argument you are making and the quotations you select. (Graff & Birkenstein – Pg. 49, par. 1) ”There are many ways to introduce a quote into your writing, but there are also many ways to do it incorrectly or in a way that can make your writing seem convoluted.
Good writing does not solely focus on the content or the quality of the quotation. It also relies heavily on the way in which you embed your quotations into your writing. Graff states, “The one piece of advice about quoting our students say is most helpful is to get in the habit of following up on every major quotation by explaining what it means… (Graff and Birkenstein – Pg. 52, par. 1) It is imperative that in your writing you provide good context, explain your thinking, and offer another supporting perspective. It may feel as though you can overexplain yourself in writing, but I’ve always been told that there is less harm in being overspecific than leaving an important idea unspoken. Graff mentions in the passage that “…readers need to see how you have interpreted the quotation since words- especially those of controversial figures—can be interpreted in various ways and used to support different, sometimes opposing, agendas.”
In the chapter “The art of quoting” I learned many new techniques along with helpful, insightful, and interesting information. One technique I found especially interesting from this chapter was the quotation sandwich; the method is used “to adequately frame a quotation.”(51 Graff & Birkenstein). The way it’s used is you think of you making a sandwich but in essay form, so the top slice of bread is the statement introduction in the middle it would lead into claims and the explanation to the quote would be the bottom slice. I find this very helpful as most people, including me, struggle to use quotes that simultaneously flow with their writing. Another thing I found interesting is something I myself have always been a little confused on. When I write and need to quote something I’ve always been scared of over-explaining the quote, but I learned today that it is encouraged to provide as much explanatory framing as possible. Along with framing it’s also very important that “quoting what “they say” must always be connected with what you say”(48 Graff & Birkenstein). I found this helpful and insightful as no one has ever put it that way and I feel more people should hear that concept. This was a very resourceful chapter with many techniques to help improve my writing as it also gives templates for introducing quotations.
After reading this chapter I found multiple things to be helpful. One of these being the quotation sandwich rule as explained on page 53, which is when you start with the intro and lead in claims to your quote. Then you state your quote, and follow up with information explaining why you think the information in the quote is important. I also thought the statement on page 55 about it being better to risk explaining your quote in more detail than you may really need rather than leaving it “dangling” was good to keep in mind.
I think it is very helpful to have a full chapter that goes into detail, with examples, of how to and how not to use quotations. The chapter goes over why you should include them in your writing, how to introduce a quote, how to explain and elaborate on the quotes you choose and how to do that, as well as how to know whether or not your quote is relevant to your writing, and so on. The reason to include quotations in your writing is to not only strengthen your point/claim/thesis, but to also provide yourself with a substantial amount of credibility on the topic (as mentioned in TI,IS page g47 paragraph 1). However, you need to make sure you are finding and using quotes that are relevant to your writing and that will strengthen your points (pg 49 p1). And you can’t just throw in any old quote and call it a day, you also need to properly introduce your quote and where it came from (pg 51). You need to state who the quote came from, who that person is, and why that might matter before you use their words. Following that, you need to elaborate on what they said, while making sure that you are using your own words. You can’t just throw in a quote and expect your readers to understand what went through your mind and know why you picked it. You need to support the quotes by explaining them in your own terms and relating it back to the main topics of your work (pg 48 p2 & pg 54 p1).
Alongside explaining all of that, the chapter gave examples with everything. Each step of the quoting and citing process was followed by at least one example of the step in use. And at the end of the chapter, there were multiple examples in which the reader got to look at and analyze what the writer did or did not do correctly, which is also extremely helpful when learning how to do something and apply it to your own writing.
In the They Say I Say chapter The Art of Quoting what I found interesting is how to frame quotations. In the chapter it emphasizes the importance of how you frame your quotes with proper context and that you can’t just drop a quote into a paper without introducing it. One quote from the text is “Quotations need to be framed; they can’t be left dangling without an explanation” (Pg48). This captures the idea that quotes should be integrated with context and commentary. Another thing that I found interesting is how to choose the right quote. In the chapter it warns against overusing quotes and that it crucial to choose quotes that support your argument and not choosing quotes to just fill up space. “Quote relevant passages that support your argument. Otherwise, readers will wonder why you included the quotation” (Pg50). This emphasizes the importance of selecting quotes that directly contribute to your point.
I found the “hit-and-run” metaphor (Graff 50) very interesting. I can fully relate to doing this in my own writing. Oftentimes, I include a quotation from a random source with no context. It’s not that I fail to explain what the quote means, but where I took the quote from and why. This does relate back to the “Quote Relevant Passages” section (Graff 48), where it states that sometimes we quote works to prove we read them. I think this was the main reason I misused quotes in the past. I would quote authors just to hit the two-quote minimum on essays. My quotes had no meaning behind them because they were just there to fulfill a rubric requirement.
In the chapter “The Art of Quoting” from They Say/I Say, there were multiple parts which stood out to me. Specifically, when Graff uses the analogy of quotations being orphans. Graff himself goes on to explain that they are “words that have been taken from their original contexts and that need to be integrated into their new textual surroundings. I found this to be particularly interesting as it brings a humanity lens to the crafting of writing. Although I appreciate his attempt to make the concept relatable, I believe that Graff is feeding into the misconception/stereotype that people who are orphans and get adopted should remove themselves from their past and become a typical person from their new surroundings. While this may not have been Graff’s intent with his analogy and human’s attempts at making a child feel like they belong there are still better ways to address the underlying issue. Another part of the book that I found to be interesting was the section on making quotation sandwiches. Throughout my time in school I have been taught by many English teachers with many different teaching styles. I have gone back and forth with using the quotation sandwich method, as some teachers would prefer it while others would rather we not use it. I find it interesting how while they were all great teachers and taught me a lot, they each had their own reasoning for why they did or did not want us to use the method. Looking at my own writing I feel that I tend to either very much over analyze or under analyze.
In this chapter “The Art of Quoting”, I found the part about making a quotation sandwiches very helpful. As Cathy Birkenstein and Gerald Graff say, “you need to insert it into what we like to call a “quotation sandwich”, with the statement introducing it serving as the top slice of Bread and the explanation following it serving as the bottom slice.” (51). A sandwich is a very well-known thing so it’s quite easy to connect and remember the proper steps to quoting. Along with that “a general rule, the most explanatory framing is needed for quotations that may be hard for readers to process quotations that are long and complex, that are filled with details or jargon, or that contain hidden complexities.” (Graff and Birkenstein 55). Which can be very helpful when you are confused if and how much you should explain your quote. I found that this chapter had many helpful tools for quoting correctly.
Pg 49. Over Analyzing Quote
This paragraph is beneficial, because for me, I tend to be very blunt and straight to the point so to understand the latter side was beneficial for me. For example, while reading I found this quote: “quotations that are long and complex, that are filled with details or jargon, or that contain hidden complexities.” this quote resonates with me for the reason that it shows that no matter how complex you try to dig up and elaborate on a quote you won’t be able to truly uncover every detail that the quote holds, and parallel to that , the best way to analyze a quote is by going through your own views of it, because words that aren’t your own aren’t explicit to you, by using broad or simplistic reasoning it leaves room for interpretation, and if you leave room for interpretation it leaves the reader conflicted and possibly lost and confused reading what I may be writing and annotating about. And so when you quote something I now understand that there is no such thing as too explicit but there is such a thing as under-explaining and being vague in an explanation, therefore, when quoting is necessary I need to be explicit with my word choice, direct in my examples, and most of all thorough in my explanation.
I thought this quote on page 48 of “The Art of Quoting was an interesting reference. The quote explains, “Quotations are orphans: words that have been taken away from their original contexts and that need to be integrated into their new textual surroundings”(Pg 48). I thought this really put into perspective how important it is to provide context for your quotes. Without context the quotes serve no purpose. Similarly to this, I also liked the hit and run reference meaning you put the quote in and run without explaining the quote (pg 49).
14 thoughts on “JOURNAL # 4”
Jaidin Fuentes
Journal #4
I believe the biggest point I got from the passage was not to over explain a piece of text. I’ve been taught since little how to add quotes and explain them to the reader to help support your thesis. However, I’ve never been warned much about the negative effects of over explaining or over analyzing a quote. The only real situation that is necessary to over explain is like the author says, “Quotations that may be hard for readers to process: quotations that are long and complex, that are filled with details or jargon, or that contain hidden complexities” (Gerald Graff, They Say/ I Say, 2024, W. W. Norton & Company, Page 54). Keeping this in mind, I plan on trying my best not to over explain my quotes and only do so if they call for such an action. I also found the technique of mixing the authors words with your own. I believe this makes the reader get the sense that the author and author of the quote are on the same page. This can help to empathizes key words and phrases to the reader to help them understand you better. Therefore leading to a more positive interaction with your piece of writing.
I found most of this chapter helpful, but mainly I think the templates are extremely helpful for me. The quotation sandwich was really interesting to me, I had never thought to quote like that before. I feel like I struggle with knowing how much or how little to analyze the quote I’ve chosen. “It is better to risk being overly explicit about what you take a quotation to mean than to leave the quotation dangling and your readers in doubt” (top of p. 55).
It’s interesting to me that it seems like most people don’t add enough quotes to their writing. I had never thought of that, but I probably do that as well. (p47, par2)
I think I can, unfortunately, relate to explaining a quote insufficiently just because I don’t totally understand it. (p48, par1)
Note that as the text changes and grows, you may need to replace quotes because they no longer fit (p49, par1)
Make sure to introduce the person that the quote comes from, then the quote, then explain the importance of the quote to you, as well as your interpretation of it. (p50-51, par3-1)
Follow the quote with an explanation of the quote (p52, par1)
Create mixes of the quoter’s words and your own (p54, par1)
It is better to over-explain than under-explain (p55, par1)
I liked and thought it was helpful of the example of “make a quotation sandwich”. I also felt this paragraph gave a good explanation, “Finding relevant quotations is only part of your job; you also need to present them in a way that makes their relevance and meaning clear to your readers. Since quotations do not speak for themselves, you need to build a frame around them in which you do that speaking for them.” page 49
As an introduction to They Say I Say some key details stood out to me. The first of which is what a quote really should be in academic writing. A quote should be thought-provoking, something that sticks with the reader, whether it be in the form of a statistic or a controversial idea. “When you’re engaged in the writing and revising process, there is usually a great deal of back and forth between the argument you are making and the quotations you select. (Graff & Birkenstein – Pg. 49, par. 1) ”There are many ways to introduce a quote into your writing, but there are also many ways to do it incorrectly or in a way that can make your writing seem convoluted.
Good writing does not solely focus on the content or the quality of the quotation. It also relies heavily on the way in which you embed your quotations into your writing. Graff states, “The one piece of advice about quoting our students say is most helpful is to get in the habit of following up on every major quotation by explaining what it means… (Graff and Birkenstein – Pg. 52, par. 1) It is imperative that in your writing you provide good context, explain your thinking, and offer another supporting perspective. It may feel as though you can overexplain yourself in writing, but I’ve always been told that there is less harm in being overspecific than leaving an important idea unspoken. Graff mentions in the passage that “…readers need to see how you have interpreted the quotation since words- especially those of controversial figures—can be interpreted in various ways and used to support different, sometimes opposing, agendas.”
In the chapter “The art of quoting” I learned many new techniques along with helpful, insightful, and interesting information. One technique I found especially interesting from this chapter was the quotation sandwich; the method is used “to adequately frame a quotation.”(51 Graff & Birkenstein). The way it’s used is you think of you making a sandwich but in essay form, so the top slice of bread is the statement introduction in the middle it would lead into claims and the explanation to the quote would be the bottom slice. I find this very helpful as most people, including me, struggle to use quotes that simultaneously flow with their writing. Another thing I found interesting is something I myself have always been a little confused on. When I write and need to quote something I’ve always been scared of over-explaining the quote, but I learned today that it is encouraged to provide as much explanatory framing as possible. Along with framing it’s also very important that “quoting what “they say” must always be connected with what you say”(48 Graff & Birkenstein). I found this helpful and insightful as no one has ever put it that way and I feel more people should hear that concept. This was a very resourceful chapter with many techniques to help improve my writing as it also gives templates for introducing quotations.
After reading this chapter I found multiple things to be helpful. One of these being the quotation sandwich rule as explained on page 53, which is when you start with the intro and lead in claims to your quote. Then you state your quote, and follow up with information explaining why you think the information in the quote is important. I also thought the statement on page 55 about it being better to risk explaining your quote in more detail than you may really need rather than leaving it “dangling” was good to keep in mind.
I think it is very helpful to have a full chapter that goes into detail, with examples, of how to and how not to use quotations. The chapter goes over why you should include them in your writing, how to introduce a quote, how to explain and elaborate on the quotes you choose and how to do that, as well as how to know whether or not your quote is relevant to your writing, and so on. The reason to include quotations in your writing is to not only strengthen your point/claim/thesis, but to also provide yourself with a substantial amount of credibility on the topic (as mentioned in TI,IS page g47 paragraph 1). However, you need to make sure you are finding and using quotes that are relevant to your writing and that will strengthen your points (pg 49 p1). And you can’t just throw in any old quote and call it a day, you also need to properly introduce your quote and where it came from (pg 51). You need to state who the quote came from, who that person is, and why that might matter before you use their words. Following that, you need to elaborate on what they said, while making sure that you are using your own words. You can’t just throw in a quote and expect your readers to understand what went through your mind and know why you picked it. You need to support the quotes by explaining them in your own terms and relating it back to the main topics of your work (pg 48 p2 & pg 54 p1).
Alongside explaining all of that, the chapter gave examples with everything. Each step of the quoting and citing process was followed by at least one example of the step in use. And at the end of the chapter, there were multiple examples in which the reader got to look at and analyze what the writer did or did not do correctly, which is also extremely helpful when learning how to do something and apply it to your own writing.
In the They Say I Say chapter The Art of Quoting what I found interesting is how to frame quotations. In the chapter it emphasizes the importance of how you frame your quotes with proper context and that you can’t just drop a quote into a paper without introducing it. One quote from the text is “Quotations need to be framed; they can’t be left dangling without an explanation” (Pg48). This captures the idea that quotes should be integrated with context and commentary. Another thing that I found interesting is how to choose the right quote. In the chapter it warns against overusing quotes and that it crucial to choose quotes that support your argument and not choosing quotes to just fill up space. “Quote relevant passages that support your argument. Otherwise, readers will wonder why you included the quotation” (Pg50). This emphasizes the importance of selecting quotes that directly contribute to your point.
I found the “hit-and-run” metaphor (Graff 50) very interesting. I can fully relate to doing this in my own writing. Oftentimes, I include a quotation from a random source with no context. It’s not that I fail to explain what the quote means, but where I took the quote from and why. This does relate back to the “Quote Relevant Passages” section (Graff 48), where it states that sometimes we quote works to prove we read them. I think this was the main reason I misused quotes in the past. I would quote authors just to hit the two-quote minimum on essays. My quotes had no meaning behind them because they were just there to fulfill a rubric requirement.
In the chapter “The Art of Quoting” from They Say/I Say, there were multiple parts which stood out to me. Specifically, when Graff uses the analogy of quotations being orphans. Graff himself goes on to explain that they are “words that have been taken from their original contexts and that need to be integrated into their new textual surroundings. I found this to be particularly interesting as it brings a humanity lens to the crafting of writing. Although I appreciate his attempt to make the concept relatable, I believe that Graff is feeding into the misconception/stereotype that people who are orphans and get adopted should remove themselves from their past and become a typical person from their new surroundings. While this may not have been Graff’s intent with his analogy and human’s attempts at making a child feel like they belong there are still better ways to address the underlying issue. Another part of the book that I found to be interesting was the section on making quotation sandwiches. Throughout my time in school I have been taught by many English teachers with many different teaching styles. I have gone back and forth with using the quotation sandwich method, as some teachers would prefer it while others would rather we not use it. I find it interesting how while they were all great teachers and taught me a lot, they each had their own reasoning for why they did or did not want us to use the method. Looking at my own writing I feel that I tend to either very much over analyze or under analyze.
In this chapter “The Art of Quoting”, I found the part about making a quotation sandwiches very helpful. As Cathy Birkenstein and Gerald Graff say, “you need to insert it into what we like to call a “quotation sandwich”, with the statement introducing it serving as the top slice of Bread and the explanation following it serving as the bottom slice.” (51). A sandwich is a very well-known thing so it’s quite easy to connect and remember the proper steps to quoting. Along with that “a general rule, the most explanatory framing is needed for quotations that may be hard for readers to process quotations that are long and complex, that are filled with details or jargon, or that contain hidden complexities.” (Graff and Birkenstein 55). Which can be very helpful when you are confused if and how much you should explain your quote. I found that this chapter had many helpful tools for quoting correctly.
Birkenstein, Cathy. They Say / I Say, Sixth Edition. W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., https://platform.virdocs.com/read/2642671/16/#/4/2/2/2/2%5Bthree-as-he-himself-puts-it-the-art-of-quoting%5D/14%5Bmake-a-quotation-sandwich%5D/18,/1:296,/1:296.
Birkenstein, Cathy. They Say / I Say, Sixth Edition. W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., https://platform.virdocs.com/read/2642671/16/#/4/2/2/2/2%5Bthree-as-he-himself-puts-it-the-art-of-quoting%5D/24%5Bblend-the-authors-words-with-your-own%5D/4,/1:355,/1:355.
Pg 49. Over Analyzing Quote
This paragraph is beneficial, because for me, I tend to be very blunt and straight to the point so to understand the latter side was beneficial for me. For example, while reading I found this quote: “quotations that are long and complex, that are filled with details or jargon, or that contain hidden complexities.” this quote resonates with me for the reason that it shows that no matter how complex you try to dig up and elaborate on a quote you won’t be able to truly uncover every detail that the quote holds, and parallel to that , the best way to analyze a quote is by going through your own views of it, because words that aren’t your own aren’t explicit to you, by using broad or simplistic reasoning it leaves room for interpretation, and if you leave room for interpretation it leaves the reader conflicted and possibly lost and confused reading what I may be writing and annotating about. And so when you quote something I now understand that there is no such thing as too explicit but there is such a thing as under-explaining and being vague in an explanation, therefore, when quoting is necessary I need to be explicit with my word choice, direct in my examples, and most of all thorough in my explanation.
I thought this quote on page 48 of “The Art of Quoting was an interesting reference. The quote explains, “Quotations are orphans: words that have been taken away from their original contexts and that need to be integrated into their new textual surroundings”(Pg 48). I thought this really put into perspective how important it is to provide context for your quotes. Without context the quotes serve no purpose. Similarly to this, I also liked the hit and run reference meaning you put the quote in and run without explaining the quote (pg 49).