Beginning academic essays witha quote

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

Is this ok to do? I did it as a way to get the juices going, but it really seems to work. it seems a little bit of a cop out to me, but its not a long quote and just fits, man.

the paper is on potential solutions to the muddle of india in forster's A Passage to INdia. the quote is the "No, not yet" bit at the end of the book.

whats your take?

― AaronK (AaronK), Wednesday, 6 October 2004 18:23 (twenty-one years ago)

you should've begun this thread with a quote?

― s1ocki (slutsky), Wednesday, 6 October 2004 18:24 (twenty-one years ago)

i mean, with a quote.

― s1ocki (slutsky), Wednesday, 6 October 2004 18:24 (twenty-one years ago)

within the actual text or above it? i do the second quite a lot--mainly to be pretentious because what the hell am i doing in grad school if i can't be pretentious.

― ryan (ryan), Wednesday, 6 October 2004 18:26 (twenty-one years ago)

i knew people in university who would ALWAYS do this! they would finish their essay and find a quote in bartlett's that seemed somewhat relevant, then stick it on! cheap!

― s1ocki (slutsky), Wednesday, 6 October 2004 18:26 (twenty-one years ago)

That's one of my favorite endings to any book ever. I think it is better to begin a paper with a quote from the text than some bullshit babble about "Gendering the Neutral: The vaginal imagery of Caves and the rape of culture"

― jocelyn (Jocelyn), Wednesday, 6 October 2004 18:27 (twenty-one years ago)

It's usually considered bad form in any context to begin with a quote.

― Gold Teeth II (kenan), Wednesday, 6 October 2004 18:27 (twenty-one years ago)

well i try to make sure the quote is from the books i am writing about. because the barlett's route is REALLY pretentious

― ryan (ryan), Wednesday, 6 October 2004 18:27 (twenty-one years ago)

even on a date? (xp)

― s1ocki (slutsky), Wednesday, 6 October 2004 18:28 (twenty-one years ago)

Bartlett's route: dud, especially if the quote is by someone who would hate the author/topic of the paper.

― jocelyn (Jocelyn), Wednesday, 6 October 2004 18:28 (twenty-one years ago)

no, it's within the actual text. im takin an upper level undergrad course as part of my application for grad school. it is literally the first line of my essay. I could probably put it above, but man, thats mighty pretentious. i couldnt get away with it seeing as this was supposed to be a 5pg paper and is now 14. the prof will kill me.

― AaronK (AaronK), Wednesday, 6 October 2004 18:29 (twenty-one years ago)

d.t.i.:
Beginning a speech with, "Websters defines _______ as ________..."

― dave225 (Dave225), Wednesday, 6 October 2004 18:29 (twenty-one years ago)

only permissible if the quote is from crocodile dundee

― mark p (Mark P), Wednesday, 6 October 2004 18:29 (twenty-one years ago)

the quote stays, then.

― AaronK (AaronK), Wednesday, 6 October 2004 18:30 (twenty-one years ago)

"Now, THAT'S a knife!"

-- Crocodile Dundee, 1984

― s1ocki (slutsky), Wednesday, 6 October 2004 18:31 (twenty-one years ago)

if you are writing about macbeth, i suggest "that's not a knife..."

XPOST

― mark p (Mark P), Wednesday, 6 October 2004 18:31 (twenty-one years ago)

Always start with:

"This essay..."

and end with:

"This essay..."

― jel -- (jel), Wednesday, 6 October 2004 18:31 (twenty-one years ago)

I dare you to title the paper E.M. Forster was teh Geh.

― jocelyn (Jocelyn), Wednesday, 6 October 2004 18:32 (twenty-one years ago)

wrong. always start with "since the dawn of time, man has ___"

― mark p (Mark P), Wednesday, 6 October 2004 18:32 (twenty-one years ago)

sorry to beat you to your own punchline, mark! bad form

― s1ocki (slutsky), Wednesday, 6 October 2004 18:32 (twenty-one years ago)

how about: "in the world today..."

― s1ocki (slutsky), Wednesday, 6 October 2004 18:33 (twenty-one years ago)

"in this paper, i am going to discuss ___"

― mark p (Mark P), Wednesday, 6 October 2004 18:33 (twenty-one years ago)

Personally, I wouldn't stick in a quote until at least the second paragraph.

― jel -- (jel), Wednesday, 6 October 2004 18:34 (twenty-one years ago)

xpost i stop just short of saying that later in the introduction.

― AaronK (AaronK), Wednesday, 6 October 2004 18:34 (twenty-one years ago)

are you writing about hustle and bustle, by chance?

― mark p (Mark P), Wednesday, 6 October 2004 18:34 (twenty-one years ago)

no hustle, no bustle.
im writin about religion and spirituality.

i have another week to work on this if i need it, but id really like to hand it in on time tomorrow...

― AaronK (AaronK), Wednesday, 6 October 2004 18:36 (twenty-one years ago)

Start with:

"I was going to start this essay with a quote, but I asked some people on an internet message board, some of them said not to, this leads me to an interesting quote from E.M Forster..."

― jel -- (jel), Wednesday, 6 October 2004 18:36 (twenty-one years ago)

Begin with ...

Once upon a time in a land full of war and violence, a wee little voice rallied the people and overthrew the evil king insofar as a society as a whole which induces the illusion of “conscious and permanent visibility” in its members, while power is disindividualised and rendered automatic. The most well-known representation of this mechanism is undoubtedly that of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, in which the figure of Big Brother could be seen as the equivalent of the inspector in the central tower of the Panopticon: he cannot be seen, and may not even exist for all the prisoners/citizens know; all that counts is the possibility that he may be watching, a possibility which becomes certainty - by virtue of a paranoid short-circuit - precisely because he cannot be seen[3]. His power is that of a social self-regulating principle which works through a gaze which is at once literal and metaphorica

― Remy (x Jeremy), Wednesday, 6 October 2004 18:36 (twenty-one years ago)

"Of dying ? Nah. I read The Bible once. You know God and Jesus and all them apostles ? They were all fishermen, just like me. Yeah, straight to heaven for Mick Dundee. Yep, me and God, we'd be mates."

Mick Dundee, 1986

― mark p (Mark P), Wednesday, 6 October 2004 18:38 (twenty-one years ago)

opps, sorry must never say "I" in an essay! :(

― jel -- (jel), Wednesday, 6 October 2004 18:39 (twenty-one years ago)

you might want to ask yourself whether the quote makes sense out of context and on it's own. otherwise perhaps you should set it up a bit so the reader doesn't have to go back to get the point.

― ryan (ryan), Wednesday, 6 October 2004 18:39 (twenty-one years ago)

"one was going to start this essay with a quote, but one asked some people on an internet message board, some of them said not to, this leads one to an interesting quote from E.M Forster..."

― AaronK (AaronK), Wednesday, 6 October 2004 18:41 (twenty-one years ago)

good point ryan.

― AaronK (AaronK), Wednesday, 6 October 2004 18:41 (twenty-one years ago)

Yeah... you could just throw the URL for this page on top.

― Remy (x Jeremy), Wednesday, 6 October 2004 18:43 (twenty-one years ago)

I usually don't mind the quote above the body of the text in academic essays, but only when I can actually figure out its relevance. I hate when there's like five quotes, though, and they're from like Freud, JFK, Camille Paglia, the Sex Pistols, and Carrot Top, and none of them have anything to do with each other, much less the essay.

― jaymc (jaymc), Wednesday, 6 October 2004 18:46 (twenty-one years ago)

jaymc OTM. waste of time--in fact i usually just skip them and come back if the essay is at all interesting. my general rule is to keep them very short and pithy

― ryan (ryan), Wednesday, 6 October 2004 18:48 (twenty-one years ago)

well, that quote is really the center of everything i'm talking about. you should know it up front.

― AaronK (AaronK), Wednesday, 6 October 2004 18:48 (twenty-one years ago)

Start with this:

The First Amendment to the United States Constitution states, without reservations, that “Congress shall make no law [...] abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble”.

It will work, trust me. People love patriotism.

― Allyzay Science Explosion (allyzay), Wednesday, 6 October 2004 22:08 (twenty-one years ago)

Well, maybe not if you were in France or something.

― Allyzay Science Explosion (allyzay), Wednesday, 6 October 2004 22:09 (twenty-one years ago)

La France est une République indivisible, laïque, démocratique et sociale. Elle assure l'égalité devant la loi de tous les citoyens sans distinction d'origine, de race ou de religion. Elle respecte toutes les croyances.

― Michael White (Hereward), Wednesday, 6 October 2004 22:12 (twenty-one years ago)

Der Wald und Natur bezaubern die Deutschen. Allgemein sind die moderne deutsche Leute bestimmte Umweltschützer, und viele deutsche Märchen und Mythen handeln von den mysteriöse Wald. Warum hat der Wald eine mächtige Faszination für diese Kultur?

― Allyzay Science Explosion (allyzay), Wednesday, 6 October 2004 22:15 (twenty-one years ago)

Go Borgesian an just make up cool quotes.

― Michael White (Hereward), Wednesday, 6 October 2004 22:18 (twenty-one years ago)

i would always quote some other paper I wrote. In total. and turn it in as a paper for that class. This is also called "recycling your work"

― kyle (akmonday), Wednesday, 6 October 2004 22:29 (twenty-one years ago)

Recycling is good, right?

― Michael White (Hereward), Wednesday, 6 October 2004 22:34 (twenty-one years ago)

It's been a while, but isn't that the very last line of the book? If so, that seems a bit lame. The meaning of the end of the book is pretty obvious, and it's rather unnecessary to remind your reader of it, since they have presumably read it.

― Hurting (Hurting), Thursday, 7 October 2004 00:06 (twenty-one years ago)

i felt it was lame too. ugh. maybe i'll try to take it out and see how that works.

i definitely assume the reader has read the book.

― AaronK (AaronK), Thursday, 7 October 2004 11:46 (twenty-one years ago)

Write your essay in one of those musical cards which you have reprogrammed with Also Sprach Zarathustra or Zadok the Priest or something. If you can figure out their reading speed you can do a whole soundtrack - something scary is about to happen... you are about to be eaten by a shark... haha, it's Steve Guttenberg! etc

― Markelby (Mark C), Thursday, 7 October 2004 12:13 (twenty-one years ago)

I like epigraphs.
or is that not what they're called? ugh.

― sgs (sgs), Thursday, 7 October 2004 12:17 (twenty-one years ago)

it is. weve decided that theyre pretentious and can therefore be used in grad school because you deserve it.

― AaronK (AaronK), Thursday, 7 October 2004 15:11 (twenty-one years ago)

Once you get to grad school you'll be so hyper-aware of your own pretension that you'll be cultivating an interest in professional wrestling and quoting the Wu-Tang Clan in your term papers. This will make you more annoying, not less.

― daria g (daria g), Friday, 8 October 2004 04:41 (twenty-one years ago)

I did it as a way to get the juices going

Is that why it's so common?

― Core of Sphagnum (Autumn Almanac), Friday, 8 October 2004 04:49 (twenty-one years ago)

im not sure, but i think i might use it that way in the future. I ended up taking it out and yesterday my "advisor" - an experienced hard ass professor - said that it was a great introduction. thanks for the help folks.

so you mean i shouldnt quote woody allen?

― AaronK (AaronK), Friday, 8 October 2004 11:53 (twenty-one years ago)

Almanac, you just started your post with a quote there.

― Markelby (Mark C), Friday, 8 October 2004 12:05 (twenty-one years ago)

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.