Quote Sandwich

Hungry for a Quote? Make a Sandwich!

What should you put in your sandwich? How do you choose a useful and appropriate quote for a persuasive essay?

You want to support your argument with strong reasoning and factual evidence, so look for facts that support your position. (N.B. Facts from sources can also be paraphrased or summarized. You don’t always have to use a direct quote.)

If you use an opinion expressed in a source, be sure that the speaker is someone the reader is likely to respect and trust. A reader is much more likely to value the opinion of an expert than the opinion of a non-expert (Writers of newspaper and magazine articles are not necessarily experts!). If a speaker you are quoting has credentials as an expert, be sure to tell your reader about them so the reader will value the opinion.

If you are opposing an author’s argument, it’s a good idea to quote him or her to show your reader you are being fair by giving the author a fair hearing.

The Quote Sandwich Guidelines:

To ensure that your reader fully understands how the quote you are using supports your thesis, you must (1) introduce the source with context, (2) smoothly incorporate the quote into your paragraph, and (3) explain it. Otherwise, your reader may be left unsure of why you used the quote and how it relates to your argument. The “quote sandwich” is a method to aid you in effectively integrating quotes into your essay.

Introduce Your Source with Context!


Before adding in your quote, introduce your source and give it some context. Think of describing what the author does in the source (Does the author explain a process? Make an argument? Describe a situation? Give background on a problem?).

Ex: In his Time magazine article “Inside the Minds of Animals,” Jeffrey Kluger argues for humans to recognize that animals think.

Present the Quotation

After you have introduced your source with context, present your quote with a signal phrase and/or a signal phrase verb!

Ex: Kluger points out “The rook, a member of the crow family, [can] reason through how to drop stones into a pitcher partly filled with water in order to raise the level high enough to drink from it” (40).

Explain It!


Now that you’ve added in your quote, explain why the quote is important. What do you think it means? How does it connect with your thesis? (Your explanation should be at least as long, or longer that the quote itself.)

Ex: Clearly, the complex action the rook takes – to notice that the water level is too low and then to gather and drop stones into the pitcher to raise the water – demonstrates complex reasoning that many small children would not be capable of. The rook is definitely thinking.

Punctuating Quotes

In addition to incorporating quotes with the quote sandwich and introducing them with signal phrases and signal phrase verbs, there are a few punctuation rules to keep in mind.

The first time you reference an article (or other text) you need to give the name(s) of the author(s), the title of the article, and the name of the magazine or book.

Introduce the Author

The first time you use a quote from an article, you need to use the author’s first and last name. (The next time you use a quote from that author, only use the last name.)

How to Punctuate Titles

Put the names of articles, essays, poems, essays, and chapters in quotation marks:

“Fish Cheeks”                         “The Boston Bombing: Should Cameras Now Be Everywhere?”


“Gauging Crime Prevention as Surveillance Expands”                    “Do Not Go Gentle”

Italicize the titles of books, movies, magazines, newspapers, periodicals, and musical albums:

Ten Little Indians          
New York Times                        Iron Man
          The Godfather

The Quote Itself

Put quotation marks “ ” around the quote and use the author’s exact words.

The In-Text Citation

After the quote, put the page number in parentheses, and the period after the 
parentheses. 


Ex. Kluger points out “The rook, a member of the crow family, [can] reason through how to drop stones into a picture partly filled with water in order to raise the level high enough to drink from it” (40).

If you quote someone quoted in your source, indicate this in the in-text citation that follows your quote, as in the example below.

Ex: Representative Peter King (R-N.Y.) of the House Homeland Security and Intelligence committees believes having video surveillance in public locations “keeps us ahead of the terrorists who are constantly trying to kill us” (qtd. in Cohen).

If you paraphrase a fact or idea from a source and have not introduced the author or source, follow your paraphrase with the author’s last name and the page number (if available) in parentheses.

Ex: Chicago has more than 10,000 surveillance cameras (Crary).

Other Notes

Insert ellipses (...) wherever you delete any words from the original quotation

Use brackets ([ ]) to add words or substitute words in the original quotation.