Rules of thumb for quoting and citing in term papers:

You are using quotes and citations toward two purposes, and both are supplying proof:

  1. You are supporting your claims with evidence that they are true.
  2. You are proving you read, studied and understood the assigned course readings.

It should be possible for the person reading your essay to open up any book you are referencing and immediately find the quote or idea that you are referencing in your paper.

As a general rule, here’s how to know what and when to quote and or cite:

  1. Any and every time you claim that something happened, cite the page numbers that prove it happened.
  2. Any and every time you claim that someone said, felt or believed something, provide quotes (and cite the page numbers) that prove they did.

You can find more on this via:

https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/section/2/11/

http://isites.harvard.edu/icb/icb.do?keyword=k70847&tabgroupid=icb.tabgroup108986

 

The student paper below (Nicole Carter’s final essay from Fall 2014 ISEM) exemplifies how to incorporate quotes into a term paper, both from academic and literary sources.  It does the following well:

 

  1. Any and all information that is not common knowledge is cited and/or quoted.
  2. It shows a strong command of the required reading by using adequate and appropriate quotes; when you read the paper it’s clear she really understands the material and didn’t just skim it for random, irrelevant quotes.
  3. It seamlessly incorporates the quotes into her own writing; the transitions between her own writing and the quotes are smooth.
  4. She tells the reader the source (book title and who spoke or wrote the statement) before giving us the quote.

 

In the book, Marriage, A History, author Stephanie Coontz says that “only rarely in history has love been seen as the main reason for getting married” and that in fact, doing so has traditionally been considered a “a serious threat to social order” in many societies (Coontz, 15). For instance, in China, a married couple who exhibited what was to be considered too much love in their relationship, they were seen as “a threat to the solidarity of the extended family” and their parents could cause the couple to divorce (Coontz, 16). Other societies were not so extreme and considered it “good if love developed after marriage,” however love was definitely not a main requirement in a marriage and even “sexual loyalty was not a high priority” (Coontz, 22). Marriage was considered more of a business transaction, or an exchange of wealth, property, and other resources (Coontz, 35). A man was needed to be the bread-winner and the woman was needed to bear and raise the children, but love in this relationship was not a necessary ingredient (Coontz, 35). Marriages were also formed for political reasons and could be used to form alliances between tribes or families to strengthen one’s power (Coontz 40).

                   Love, as we think of it today, “is a recent invention, a mere few hundred years old…(that) is limited to Western Cultures” (Sternberg et al., 65). While love is experienced by people in all cultures across the globe, the way it is socially acceptable to be expressed is far from similar (Sternberg et al., 65). Passionate love that is not returned leads to anxiety, depression and despair which is why in many Eastern cultures, love is connected to sadness (Sternberg et al., 274). In these cultures, people taken great care in perfecting their image, and since showing passionate love is considered dangerous, it is very rarely displayed (Sternberg et al., 276). Another threat that passionate love causes is jealousy (Sternberg et al., 73). According to psychologist David Buss, jealousy evolved as a commitment device to protect one’s mate from another (Sternberg et al., 73). However, having too much jealousy in a relationship can be unhealthy, and can many times drive a partner to homicidal actions if they become too jealous or their partner cheats on them (Sternberg et al., 75).

                   Jealousy is not a new invention. In the Greek tragedy, Medea, a woman named Medea sacrifices the well-being of her family and her entire way of life to be with a man named Jason. In a conversation with Jason at one point Medea remarks, “I saved your life, and every Greek knows I saved it…” (Euripides, 16). However, even after Medea makes such extreme sacrifices for him, Jason decides to make a “royal alliance” and marry another woman so that he can “breed a royal progeny to be brothers to the children” (Euripides, 19). While a man marrying another woman was a fairly common practice at the time, Medea was overcome with jealously and disgust for Jason after he broke his marital promise to her after all she had done for him (Euripides, 40). As a result, Medea decides to “kill my children, and start away from this land” in order to enact revenge on him (Euripides, 40). Euripides illustrates to readers that jealousy stemming from passionate love can cause people to do insane things and warns that falling deeply in love with someone, like Medea did, can be very unhealthy.