
This student made the fatal mistake of having the quote overtake the paragraph. Therefore poverty in childhood needs to be addressed by the government. When statistics show that roughly 42% of children born into the bottom level of the income distribution will likely stay there (Isaacs, 2007), this Is a consequence of structural and social barriers.” (Mistry et al., 2016, p. “Many adult Americans believe that hard work and drive are important factors on economic mobility. Here’s an example of over-use of quotes in paragraphs:Ĭhildren who grow up in poverty often end up being poor as adults. Even if this is only your teacher’s perception, it’s something that you need to be aware of. It can start to look like you didn’t have enough to say, so you inserted quotes to pad out your essay. One reason teachers don’t like long quotes is that they suck up your word count. This leaves plenty of space for discussion in your own words. That means that your quote will be a maximum of one-sixth (1/6) of your paragraph.


If you follow my perfect paragraph formula, you know that most paragraphs should be about six sentences long, which comes out to about six or seven typed lines on paper. Too many students provide quotes that take up half of a paragraph. Many, many teachers don’t like long quotes, so it’s best to avoid them. It doesn’t matter if it is an amazing quote. Long quotes in essays are red flags for teachers. In fact, four word quotes are usually best.

There’s a simple rule to follow here: don’t use a quote that is longer than one line.
Quick quotes paper how to#
Summing Up How to use Quotes in an Essay 1.
