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Background and Context:
1. General Background: Give the who-what-when-where
of the quote,
so that the reader isn't dropped into the middle of an unknown
situation and expected to understand an isolated quote.
2. Do not
summarize the whole story up to that point. Give just the
information that would be necessary to enable someone
who has not read the story
to understand the quote.
3. Do not summarize everything in your quote before you give the quote.
The purpose of the quote is to give evidence of the
idea.
Background is background, not quote summary.
4. Give only a general idea of the nature of the quote.
5. Immediate Background: Have a transitional phrase immediately
before the quote (often beginning with "When…"),
which gives the
exact context of the quote, telling exactly what is happening when
the action in the quote is occurring.
6. For a smooth transition
into the quote, make sure that the last words
of the transitional phrase match grammatically and stylistically with
the first words of the quote. If they don't, chop a few words off the
beginning of the quote until the transition sounds good.
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