Sweet Dreams

Embedding Evidence, Part 1

Once you have collected your evidence, you will need to work it seamlessly into the flow of your text. This called EMBEDDING the quotes or evidence. Think of it as tucking the evidence comfortably into your text while still giving proper credit to the source. The principle of embedding evidence is simple.

1. Introduce the evidence.
2. State the evidence giving credit to the author.
3. Comment on the evidence by connecting it to your thesis.

Now, let's look at some examples and go over the rules for punctuating and entering the PARENTHETICAL CITATION.

Four Ways to Embed Evidence:

1. Put the source into the sentence with a comma between the author and the quote and the page number in the PARENTHETICAL CITATION: According to children's therapist Sarah Michaels, "Of the 500 children polled, more than one half of the boys played video games they themselves considered violent" (15).
2. Put the source in the front of the sentence with "that" (and no comma) between the author and the quote and the page number in the PARENTHETICAL CITATION: Child therapist Sarah Michaels says that "Of the 500 children polled, more than one half of the boys played video games they themselves considered violent" (15).
3. Put the source in the front of the sentence with a colon between the author and the quote and the page number in the PARENTHETICAL CITATION: Child therapist Sarah Michaels considered how children define violence in her study: "Of the 500 children polled, more than one half of the boys played video games they themselves defined as violent" (15).
4. Do not include the author's name in the text; place it in the PARENTHETICAL CITATION at the end of the sentence instead: "Of the 500 children polled, more than one half of the boys played video games they themselves considered violent" (Michaels 15).

Next, we will get more specific on tips for using quotations and parenthetical citations.

Next

© KC Distance Learning. All rights reserved.