Academic writing often requires that a writer reference the ideas of others. Generally, an academic essay includes the student’s ideas and discussion of their topic, supported by evidence of material written by others, often in the form of quotations from experts and other sources.  

When quotes are used as support in an essay, it is best to create a smooth connection from your idea to the quoted material. The ideas should flow together and be logical. One way to do this is to integrate the quote into a sentence, which places the quote into the context of your own writing rather than inserting a stand-alone quote in between your sentences.

For example, if the original text by Terrance Hayes reads: “I said American poetry was born essentially of two streams: Emily Dickinson, the shy, private weirdo, and Walt Whitman, the public, social weirdo.” 
 

The quote can be embedded like this:

Poet Terrance Hayes claims that “American poetry was born essentially of two streams: Emily Dickinson, the shy, private weirdo, and Walt Whitman, the public, social weirdo” (7).

This quote would then be followed by analysis or explanation of the quote connecting it to the context of the paragraph. 

Quotation sandwich

In addition to integrating quoted material with your writing, it is a good idea to “sandwich” the quote, which means providing an introduction, analysis and explanation before and after the quote, like two pieces of bread in a sandwich. In the following example, note how the quote is only a small part of the student’s writing. The majority of the words are the student’s own thoughts and analysis. 

The roots of contemporary American poetry can be traced to the work of two 19th century writers. Poet Terrance Hayes suggests that “American poetry was born essentially of two streams: Emily Dickinson, the shy, private weirdo, and Walt Whitman, the public, social weirdo” (7).

Here, Hayes contrasts the “shy, private” Dickinson with the “public, social” Whitman to suggest themes as well as the influence of these two poets on the tradition that developed in the century and half that followed.

The quote “sandwich” here identifies the point the writer is making in the first sentence, the second sentence provides a quoted example to illustrate the point, and the third sentence explains the significance of the example illustrated by the quote. 

Use of the quotation sandwich helps the writer use source examples to support the points they are making rather than using source materials to make points and develop the essay ideas.