Citing From a Text Example and Guidelines:

When citing a text in your essays, remember the following guidelines:

1. Make whatever you are citing a part of one of your sentences - no hit and run quotes. In other words, the quoted material should not be its own sentence, but rather make up part of or complete one of your sentences.

2. Use this template: Introduce what you are going to quote (text, author, topic), quote the text in one of your sentences, and then comment on what you quoted.

3. Choose lines from the text that could only come from that text. 

Here's an example of how to do that:

We were standing around in Seth’s back yard, and the topic of pride came up. Several of the men there spoke about how pride was evil, how it was elevating yourself above others. I listened to what they were saying with a mixture of interest, agreement, and incredulity. I then began to think of Bryce Courtney’s The Power of One. It is the story of a young boxer named Peekay who must conquer the shame he feels as a young boy when picked on by a figure known only as the Judge. It is not until later that he learns that pride is “holding your head up when everyone around you has theirs bowed” (115). This is a much different sort of pride than the kind Seth was speaking of, for this pride is an extension of courage. In fact, as Big Hettie tells Peekay, “it’s courage that makes you do it” (115).