Structuring Sentences (1 Viewer)

[~ ReNcH ~]

Teachers always advise me that the best way to structure a sentence with a quote, is to incorporate the quote into the sentence e.g. the purpose of the text was to demonstrate "the futility of war".
I know that it doesn't look good if you simply use "e.g." all the time, but under the pressure of the exam how can you think of ways to incorporate a quote into a sentence?...it's enough trouble remembering the quote in its entirety let alone "moulding" it into the shape of your sentence.
I've seen some essays that state a point then use a colon before quoting. I like this the best since it neither uses "e.g." nor requires you to mould the quote, but I'm not sure whether markers will frown upon it or be irritated by it because it breaks the flow of the argument.

 

[glitterfairy]

I was also taught to integrate whenever possible. Shows a greater control over the writing medium.

Sometimes it's really really hard though, and I recall cheating a bit in the exam last year. Things like "such as when he says..." and "as evident in the line..." popped up here and there.

That being said, sometimes it's just too weird to integrate. In situations like that, I might actually say the quote first, and then go on with (quote) "demonstrates...."/"is an example of..." etc etc.

 

[kami]

hmm...well while making your essays "pretty" is in a way a part of the outcomes, the most important part is to show your knowledge of text, features and techniques. So using semicolons and "for example" and things like that are permissable obviously as the Board has band 6 responses containing these structural devices. Also, this is no slight to the exemplars but they are not neccesarily the creme de la creme of essay writing, only a guideline to the standard of a certain band, and you should seek to not only get the band but perform as well as possible which would be better than the exemplars and would utilise things such as what your teacher suggested. You'll also find if you do lots of timed hand written essays then you'll get the nack for on the spot "moulding", I remember last year our teacher made us do a trial question every lesson as practice for nearly a term...we learnt or we got arthritis.lol. I hope this makes sense.

 

[~ ReNcH ~]

Would markers notice if you kind of "tweak" the quote to suit your sentence, as opposed to the other way around, or is this a bad idea altogether?