Picking Quotes and Your Literature Review
Now here is a topic that is more interesting than you might at first think. In any literature review, you'll be citing sources and quoting from them so, you pick the most relevant quotes and, well, quote them. What more is there to say? Quite a bit, as it happens. In some undergraduate work, the purpose is to determine your stance on a text or issue, and then to present evidence for that stance. That evidence often comes from the literature and in many cases, the task goes like this: you dig in, do loads of reading, find work that supports your stance, pick the clearest or juiciest quotes, and cite them in support of your view. This work is not without value. You get practice in working out a clear stance, you get experience in searching for scholarly sources, and in reading them. You gain experience in working out how your work fits with previous work. Who agrees with you? Who does not? In order to answer these questions, you have to have a clear and robust sense of y...