Who was the intended audience

When you pull a quote from a source, be sure to ask yourself these questions:

1. Who:
   1. Who was the intended audience?
   2. Who wrote it?
   3. Who is affected by it?
2. What:
   1. What was its stance?
   2. What was its purpose?
   3. What is its genre?
      1. What genre conventions do you think dictated how the author wrote your source? For example, if this is a satirical piece, how do you determine what is real and what is fiction? How do you approach an opinion piece in a newspaper?
   4. What are you using it for? For example: background, counter argument, opinion piece
   5. What is it intended to do? For example: ethos, pathos, logos, any other compositional/literary tools
3. When was it written?
   1. Is it relevant?
4. Where are you going to include it in your essay?
5. Why:
   1. Why was it written?
   2. Why are you using it (as opposed to other articles)?
   3. Why is it important?
6. How:
   1. How was it published?
   2. How are you using it?
   3. How long is it? (This means how am I going to cite it? Block/embedded)
   4. How does it support your argument?

These are all important questions to ask yourself in your sources, and more specifically your quotes. Of course, it would end up being a graduate style paper if you addressed each of these in your essay for each quote. The italicized questions are most important to consider including somewhere in your signal phrase, in-text citation, or analysis. You can address each of these questions without outright saying “This is the: author, stance; it is important because…, it supports my argument because…, etc.” All of these questions are important to know, even if not to allude to in your essay in some way. If you get stuck in nearly any analysis, start answering these questions to yourself and see if you can build on your analysis.

For example: Instead of saying “This quote is important and was included because it shows contradictions in (insert problem),” you could say “This quote highlights the contradictory nature of the argument (insert stance of quote)”.

Instead of saying “I am using it because it supports my last claim,” you could say, “this author’s stance suggests (insert what it does in your essay), offering proof of (insert your argument)”.