The Writing Brain
University of Exeter

Quoting From The Text You Are Analysing (Also Called “Your Primary Text”)

In your Education Before University, you may have been encouraged not to quote at length from the piece of literature you’re writing about: instead, you may have been encouraged to quote one or two words, but to quote frequently.

This is because you read a relatively small number of texts to prepare for your culminating exams, and the people who read your essays and exams were very familiar with those texts. After all, they had recently read them in preparation for exam marking.

At university, though, your essays are addressed to an imaginary “reader.”  This reader is not really your seminar leader, nor anyone else who might be marking your essay.  Instead, it is most helpful to think of the reader of you university essays as someone who is very interested in your topic and very intelligent, but who has no real knowledge of your text.  It may help to think of your reader as remembering your text well enough to say, “Oh, yeah, isn’t that the one where…?” They don’t remember every detail, or even most details. They remember a vague outline of the plot, but you’ll have to remind them of everything else.

This “everything else” includes reminding your reader who characters you mention are (if you mention a character’s name, give a little reminder of who they are in the text!), and giving them a reminder about plot (so if you mention something that happens in the text, give a little context, so your readers can place it!).  It also means that

when you quote from a primary text in a university essay, you want to quote enough that your reader instantly sees that the quotation proves your assertion.

Remember that literary criticism is basically your opinion plus evidence.  If you don’t have enough evidence (in this case, evidence from the text that the reader can see and understand), your essay is really just your opinion. There’s no guaranteed that that will convince anyone. And guaranteed conviction is what you want.

Think of your reader as utterly ignorant of your topic, but infinitely intelligent (UI II). They can understand whatever point you want to make, but you need to provide them with all the information that will allow them to do so.

This is why it’s a good idea to quote a Full Unit of Sense (FUS).  A Full Unit of Sense contains a subject and a verb.  Of course, in many poems in particular, it can take a long time to for a phrase to get to its verb, or its subject. In the case of poetry, then, try to quote at least a full line.  You want to show your reader the evidence doing what you say it’s doing.

In order to show you how to use textual evidence from your primary text, this handout begins in an unusual way.  Please turn to the final page and read the extract reproduced there.  We’re going to use this as our sample text.  Please read it through once, or twice if you have trouble understanding it, and then turn back to this page.  Don’t look at the extract again as we proceed.

Having read that extract once or twice through, you remember it about as well as you should imagine your reader remembers the text you’re writing about.

Now imagine that you’re offering an analytical point about that extract.  You know that a body paragraph must have a point, evidence, and an explanation of how the two go together.  Here’s your point:

The opening paragraphs of David Copperfield pit male rational knowledge against female superstition.

Don’t look at the extract to see if this is true! Remember, you’re in the position of your own reader, who doesn’t have David Copperfield in front of them, and who is waiting for you to convince them that what you say is true. In order to convince them, you need to supply some evidence.  Here is the sort of evidence you might supply in your Education Before University:

The opening paragraphs of David Copperfield pit male rational knowledge against female irrational belief. David Copperfield tells the reader about the date and time he was born, and then he alleges that “some sage women” said he was destined to be unlucky (332). By associating the male Copperfield with the practical evidence of date and time, but the women with superstition, the text suggests.

Here it looks as if you have enough evidence.  You’ve included a quotation, and you’ve told your reader what there is in the text that proves you right.  But it’s that telling that’s the problem.  When it comes to textual evidence: show, don’t tell.

There are three general reasons for this.

  1. Your reader has no reason to believe that the text in fact does what you say it does. If you show them the text doing what it does, they can’t argue with that.
  2. Your reader has no reason to agree with your interpretation of what the text is doing (your telling). If you show them what the text is doing, they must believe that it is indeed doing that.
  3. It’s very hard for a reader to envision something about a text they can’t really remember. Asking them to imagine something from a scene they barely remember makes them feel confused.  Showing them something makes them feel secure and grounded.

Have a look at the original paragraph:

The opening paragraphs of David Copperfield pit male rational knowledge against female irrational belief. David Copperfield tells the reader about the date and time he was born, and then he alleges that “some sage women” said he was destined to be unlucky (332). By associating the male Copperfield with the practical evidence of date and time, but the women with superstition, the text suggests rationality is male, and superstition female.

And now a revision:

The opening paragraphs of David Copperfield pit male rational knowledge against female superstition. “I record that I was born…on a Friday, at twelve o’clock at night,” Copperfield says.  He then says that “In consideration of the day and hour of my birth, it was declared by the nurse, and by some sage women in the neighbourhood …, first, that I was destined to be unlucky in life; and secondly, that I was privileged to see ghosts and spirits” (332). the women with superstition, the text suggests rationality is male, and superstition female.

You can see that the second version is clearer. The text is right there. Your reader doesn’t need to try to remember it, and they don’t need to rely on you to know what’s going on in it. This also makes it harder to argue with.

You will also notice that the revision quotes full sentences. This is because providing context is very important to the success of evidence. Consider the following sentence:

David Copperfield begins with Copperfield uncertain about his fate:  “Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life” (332).

Again, this looks good at first glance.  You’ve made an assertion; you’ve quoted more than two or three words as evidence; the evidence seems relevant.  But a reader needs to know many things in order to understand that this evidence supports this assertion:

  • They need to know that David Copperfield says this
  • They need to know that he says it at the beginning of the book
  • And they really should know the second half of that “whether” statement (as in “whether x or”)

This writer is therefore taking a lot of risks. They’re assuming that their reader knows who makes this statement, in what circumstances, and that they’re not interested in the second half of the sentence.

In fact, readers are more receptive when they are fully grounded:

David Copperfield begins with Copperfield uncertain about his fate. In the book’s very first sentence he says, “Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show” (332).

Of course, sometimes only one word is important.  In the sentences above, for example, only “whether” and “or” are needed to prove that David Copperfield is uncertain about his fate.  In that case, you can quote the Full Unit of Sense, then highlight the significant words:

David Copperfield begins with Copperfield uncertain about his fate. In the book’s very first sentence he says, “Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show” (332). His use of the “whether…or…” construction shows that he is not certain which it will be.

Now your reader feels grounded, but you’ve also made it clear which words are the important ones, so they can’t fail to miss your point.  I call this “quote big, then quote little,” and it’s one of the handiest tricks I know to produce strong, clear evidence.

Practical Solutions:

If you’re not sure if you have enough evidence, show your paragraph to someone you trust and ask them to explain back to you how the evidence proves the point.

If you’re not sure if you’ve quoted too little, quote more than you think you need to. Until you have a feel for how much is enough, it’s always better to quote too much than too little.

Once you’ve included your quotation as evidence, ask yourself, “Have I given my reader everything they need to understand why this is proof of my assertion?”

If all else fails, think of your essay as one side of a court case. Have you presented enough evidence to prove your case?  Have you shown why your evidence proves your case? Can your reader understand why your evidence proves your case?  Would you win in court?

Be Aware of These:

You must include your primary text in your list of Works Cited.

For 12 years you’ve been taught to provide evidence in a certain way. It’s going to take a while to break the habit, so don’t worry if it doesn’t happen right away. Just keep being conscious of what you’re aiming to do.

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