Quoting Too Much In Essays

Below is a good example of blending in quotations: John Proctor deals with his own inner conflict as he is burdened with guilt and shame of his past adulterous actions.

The punctuation mark used to indicate a repetition of another author’s work is presented through quotation marks.

These quotation marks are illustrated by inverted commas, either single inverted commas (‘ ’) or, double inverted commas, (“ ”).

There is no general rule in Australia regarding which type of inverted comma you must use for quotations.

Single inverted commas are preferred in Australia as it follows the British standard.

Remember that the essay is piece of work and should consist mainly of your own ideas and thoughts.

Single word quotations The word ‘evaporates’, used to characterise money and happiness intends to instill the idea that happiness as a result of money is only temporary.Plagiarism occurs when you take someone else’s work and pass it off as your own.You must make sure that you use quotation marks whenever you use evidence from your text. VCAA uses statistical analysis to compare a student’s work with their General Achievement Test (GAT), and if the cross-referencing indicates that the student is achieving unexpectedly high results with their schoolwork, the student’s school will be notified and consequential actions will be taken.Generally speaking, the absolute minimum is three quotes per paragraph but you should not your paragraphs either.Overcrowding your essay with too many quotations will lead to failure to develop your ideas, as well as your work appearing too convoluted for your assessor.Conversely, an essay with no quotations will not achieve many marks either. Quotations are a ‘support’ system, much like a back up for your ideas and arguments.Thus, you must be selective in how much you want to quote.The American standard involves styling quotations with the double inverted comma.You can choose either styles, just be consistent in your essays.Here is the same example again, with the student using ellipsis: The multitudes of deaths surrounding Anna began to take its toll on her, burdening her with guilt as she felt ‘the press of their ghosts…[and] begun to step small and carry myself all hunched…as if to leave room for them.’ (In this case, we have deleted:‘sometimes, if I walked the main street of the village in the evening’ and ‘I realised then that I had’ by using an ellipsis – a part of the quotation that is not missed because it does not represent the essence of the student’s argument.You would have noticed that a square bracket ([ ]) was used.