Starting out in this class, I didn’t know how to properly integrate sources into my papers. If we had to use two sources, I would mainly focus on getting information from one and then finding like one piece of information from the other. Now, I try to use all of my sources as equally as possible, along with my own ideas. I didn’t know about framing quotes or ideas from another source. So, I would just throw a quote into my paper where I though it made sense. I didn’t take the time to explain who the author was and why they were reliable, and I didn’t explain or expand on what they said. In English 110, we learned how to frame a quote, kind of like a “sandwich”. The first piece of bread is about the author of the quote and why their information can be trusted. The meat is the quote or summary of the author’s words. Then, the other piece of bread is the explanation of the of the quote or summary. This way the reader knows who the source is, why they should believe them, and why the information is relevant. I have an example of this in my significant writing project: “danah boyd, who prefers her name all lowercase, is a technology and social media scholar. In her book, It’s Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens, she proposes a concept that there are unwritten rules with social media that we all function according to. boyd describes this directly in her text, ‘peers influence one another about how to use a particular site and then help collectively to create the norms of that site’ (40). In other words, there are no set rules on how to use and post on social media, but the users of the app learn from each other and come up with a set of unsaid rules in which to follow.” Here, I started out with and explanation of who boyd is and why she is a trusted source. I then introduced her book and gave a quote directly from her text. After the quote, I explained in my own words what she is trying to say, which helped the reader understand the importance of the quote. Throwing in a random quote, like I once did, does not have the same effect as framing. All three parts of the “sandwich” are crucial in integration of sources, and they have helped my writing get continuously better.
