For the editing skill I chose to read about, I chose quotations. It has been a long time since I have had to incorporate quotes into my writing so I have forgotten the nuances of how to do it. I chose to read this section to freshen up this skill.

I was reminded of several things and also learned a few new things as well. First, I was reminded of where to put my punctuation depending on how the quote ends or fits into my sentence and depending on which style of siting I am using. The other thing I was reminded was how to fit a quote into my sentence to make it flow well. This is extremely important for the reader and for the information in my paper to make sense.

What I learned was: first, always read a quote allowed to make sure it flows well in my sentence. This is useful because I will be able to hear if the sentence is choppy or does not make sense. The other thing I learned are what the brackets ([ and ]) mean in writing. To be honest this is something I have noticed while reading articles but never understood. Come to find out its words that are inserted into a quote that are not actually part of the quote. The purpose of these inserted words is to help the sentence and quote flow well together and make sense.

An example of where I could use this in my Literary Narrative piece is when I was quoting my teacher, Mr. Flynn’s, writing on the first paper I handed in. Currently the sentence reads:

“It was filled with margin notes, lines through my sentences, arrows, underlines and a note on the last page that said, “Very rough, needs more editing next time, analysis needs to be deeper, overall needs work.”

To use brackets I could reword it to make a little more sense:

“It was filled with margin notes, lines through my sentences, arrows, underlines and a note on the last page that said, “[Your writing was] very rough, needs more editing next time, [and your] analysis needs to be deeper, overall needs work.”

After reading the revised sentence allowed I think it flows better and will make more sense to the reader. Using my new quoting skills I think I will be able to revise my paper to make my quotations flow right along with the river that is my writing.