Think of the perfect chocolate chip cookie. The top is golden-brown. The cookie is soft, but not underbaked. The chocolate chips are distributed throughout, giving you a hint of chocolatey goodness in every bite and blending beautifully with the dough.

One crucial step in baking chocolate chip cookies is stirring the chocolate chips into the batter until they are fully incorporated. Imagine what would happen if the baker simply dropped a heaping cup of chocolate chips into the bowl and scooped out spoonfuls of dough without stirring. Some cookies would have no chocolate chips, and others could hardly be called cookies because they’d be nothing but chocolate chips. What a mess!

Just as chocolate chips are an essential ingredient in chocolate chip cookies, well-chosen quotations are an essential ingredient in research papers. But simply having the quotes isn’t enough. They need to be properly incorporated, like chocolate chips in cookie dough.

One common mistake we see a lot at the Writing Studio is the use of dropped quotes. A dropped quote is a quotation that is placed into a paper as its own sentence without being fully integrated into the surrounding text. A dropped quote hasn’t been stirred in.

Below is an example, with the dropped quote in bold. In all my examples, I’m using APA style for my citations, but the ideas apply regardless of which format you’re using.  

In The Kindness Challenge, author and researcher Shaunti Feldhahn (2016) took a close look at the transformational power of kindness. “It changes you, not just others. It melts hardness and makes gentleness immensely powerful” (Feldhahn 2016, p. 17). She provided insight on day-to-day practices readers could try and apply to any relationship, whether with a spouse, a relative, or a difficult co-worker.

At first, it might look correct. After all, the quotation marks and parenthetical citation are present, and the quote is relevant to the paragraph. Even so, the quote is not fully incorporated. There’s nothing introducing it. It has simply been “dropped” in—not stirred.

Thankfully, fixing this common error is simple. There are a few easy options.

One option is to add a signal phrase, like according to Feldhahn (2016), or Feldhahn (2016) wrote. These and other phrases (i.e., so-and-so described/claimed/found) signal to the reader that a quotation is coming. Here’s a corrected version of the same paragraph:

In The Kindness Challenge, author and researcher Shaunti Feldhahn (2016) took a close look at the transformational power of kindness. Feldhahn (2016) explained, “It changes you, not just others. It melts hardness and makes gentleness immensely powerful” (p. 17). She provided insight on day-to-day practices readers could try and apply to any relationship, whether with a spouse, a relative, or a difficult co-worker.

Another option is to use the previous sentence as an introduction, and end it with a colon rather than a period. The key here is to make sure that the sentence and the quote are very closely related before you use the colon to join them. The transition needs to be smooth and logical, not jarring. Keep in mind that this strategy can lead to some very long sentences, which may lead to confusion if you’re dealing with particularly difficult subject matter or hard-to-read authors. In this case, it would work:

In The Kindness Challenge, author and researcher Shaunti Feldhahn (2016) took a close look at the transformational power of kindness: “It changes you, not just others. It melts hardness and makes gentleness immensely powerful” (p. 17). She provided insight on day-to-day practices readers could try and apply to any relationship, whether with a spouse, a relative, or a difficult co-worker.

Another way to fix dropped quotes is to blend the quoted material into a sentence by using carefully selected words or phrases rather than the full quote.

In The Kindness Challenge, author and researcher Shaunti Feldhahn (2016) took a close look at the transformational power of kindness. Feldhahn (2016) explained that kindness “changes you,” and that it “melts hardness and makes gentleness immensely powerful” (p. 17). She provided insight on day-to-day practices readers could try and apply to any relationship, whether with a spouse, a relative, or a difficult co-worker.

Keep in mind that it’s a good idea to use a variety of approaches as you integrate your quotes. A little bit of variety will create a smoother, more interesting reading experience than using “According to Source” or “As Source said” every single time. As the writer, you get to choose which strategy will work best with each new quotation you stir in. It’s sort of like choosing whether you’re going to stir in the chocolate chips with a wooden spoon, a silicone spatula, or a stand mixer—they all get the job done, just in slightly different ways.

Along with properly introducing each quote, it’s important to pay attention to what comes after. A common problem that accompanies dropped quotes is a lack of further explanation. Sometimes, the quote is dropped at the end of the paragraph, leaving the paragraph without a concluding thought or transition. Other times, the quote is in the middle of the paragraph, but the writer moves on to the next idea without any kind of reflection or further context. The quote doesn’t “stick” to the material around it.

To fix this post-quote problem, add a sentence or two of explanation. Keep in mind that the explanation doesn’t have to be long to be effective. In the examples above, all it took was one sentence: She provided insight on day-to-day practices readers could try and apply to any relationship, whether with a spouse, a relative, or a difficult co-worker. The sentence was not a recap of the quote, but instead built on the quote with further information, which allowed the writer to transition to the next idea. Think of it like stirring thoroughly to ensure that the chocolate chips are completely incorporated throughout the dough.

Here’s an example of a dropped quote that needs to be corrected—see if you can identify what needs to change. (Hint: There are two things the writer needs to do.)

One behavior that often gets in the way of practicing kindness is speaking negatively about others. Feldhahn (2016) argued that avoiding negative comments about others is an important step in treating them with kindness, and ultimately, improving the relationship. “You will find that as you gain the new habit of nixing the negativity, something remarkable happens. You will have a lighter heart, greater peace, and much more enjoyment of your life and relationships” (Feldhahn 2016, p 63). The 30-day kindness challenge created by Feldhahn (2016) includes one specific, easily attainable action item for every day of the month.

Do you see what’s missing? That’s right—the quote isn’t introduced. There’s also no explanation after the quote. The writer moves on to the next idea without creating a smooth transition, making the ideas in the paragraph hard to follow. The paragraph is choppy and disjointed. Let’s fix it by introducing the quote and adding a bit of explanation after:

One behavior that often gets in the way of practicing kindness is speaking negatively about others. Feldhahn (2016) argued that avoiding negative comments about others is an important step in treating them with kindness, and ultimately, improving the relationship. According to Feldhahn (2016), “nixing the negativity” leads to having “a lighter heart, greater peace, and much more enjoyment of your life and relationships” (p. 63). This concept is so important that it’s one of three foundational components of her 30-day kindness challenge.

That last sentence provides further context for the quote, and it helps move the paper forward, easing the writer toward the next idea. A little bit of extra stirring can make a delicious difference.

References

Feldhahn, S. (2016). The kindness challenge: Thirty days to improve any relationship. WaterBrook.

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Kellie Moore graduated from Concordia University Irvine in 2010 with a B.A. in English and a minor in creative writing. She worked in the Writing Studio for two years as an undergrad, and she is delighted to be part of the Online Writing Lab team. At Concordia University Irvine, Kellie fell in love with journalism through her work as an editor of The Concordia Courier. She went on to earn a master’s degree from the Missouri School of Journalism. Since then, she’s managed a religion news website, taught high school English, and worked as a copy editor. She also had the joy of being an editor at Verily magazine, where she was a contributing writer. Now, she’s a stay-at-home mom and freelance writer/editor. She lives in Utah with her husband, their two kids, and two cats.