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25.7: Using a Comma to Introduce Quotations

  • Page ID
    315427
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    As you move into source use, you will want to incorporate the ideas of others in your own writing. When you do this, it is important to clarify which ideas come from you and which come from other sources. Because dropping a quotation into a sentence without context can confuse readers, you should always use a signal phrase to introduce quoted information, and you should use a comma between this introductory phrase and the quotation to indicate the transition between ideas.

    Exercise 25.7: Using Commas with Quotations

    Read the following sentences and insert commas where necessary.

    1. “Research is formalized curiosity” writes Zora Neale Hurston in her autobiography.
    2. According to Daniel Dubuisson “cultures are also, and just as fundamentally, human creations.”
    3. Franz Fanon argues that “to speak a language is to take on a world, a culture.”
    4. Considering the purpose of writing, Gloria Anzaldua explains “the world I create in the writing compensates for what the real world does not give me. By writing I put order in the world, give it a handle so I can grasp it. I write because life does not appease my appetites and anger [. . .] To become more intimate with myself and you. To discover myself, to preserve myself, to make myself, to achieve self-autonomy. To dispel the myths that I am a mad prophet or a poor suffering soul.”
    5. As Timothy Morton notes “the more we analyze, the more ambiguous things become.”

    This page titled 25.7: Using a Comma to Introduce Quotations was last modified on Tue, 30 Jun 2026 15:47:47 GMT and is shared under a CC BY 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by The Butler Community College English Department.