Romeo and Juliet - Illustrating and Supporting Points

Paraphrasing is often neglected, despite being one of the most useful methods. In fact, it is an essential skill for many reasons besides writing English essays. Paraphrasing demonstrates your knowledge of the text and is very often more elegant than quoting multiple words or very long passages.

If you wish to draw attention to a specific language choice, you might quote a single word or a short phrase. Mixing paraphrase and a short quotation in the same sentence is often an efficient way of making a complex point. This is nearly always better than writing long, unwieldy sentences full of multiple short quotations.

The third option is to quote a full sentence or more. This is the best choice when you would like to discuss a longer quotation in close detail or if a shorter quotation just won't make sense.

Remember: you will not normally need to use quotation marks if you are referring to a single word which is not especially significant in itself. For example, it is rather silly to quote “cat” unless the use of the word is unusual or unexpected in some way. When using an exact phrase or sentence from the text, however, do remember to put quotation marks around it.

See how you do with this quiz on the best way to use evidence from Romeo and Juliet. Remember, the purpose of this quiz is to test your ability to quote and to paraphrase, rather than to test your knowledge of the text. One helpful tip is that it might be easier to eliminate the incorrect answers first!