Quotations in PS? Forum

[bb8900]

Hi,

I am in the process of writing my PS. I am writing about how a public policy amendment has influenced my life and how it inspired me to become a lawyer.

In the PS I quote several of the Congressmen that were responsible for the legislature as well as other Congressmen that comment on it.

I was wondering if this was allowed, since I am quoting Congressmen based on reading articles by OTHER writers. Unike college essays I can't exactly provide a works cited page.

What do you suggest I do? How do I keep the PS grammatically accurate?

Thanks

[SullaFelix]

Hi,

I am in the process of writing my PS. I am writing about how a public policy amendment has influenced my life and how it inspired me to become a lawyer.

In the PS I quote several of the Congressmen that were responsible for the legislature as well as other Congressmen that comment on it.

I was wondering if this was allowed, since I am quoting Congressmen based on reading articles by OTHER writers. Unike college essays I can't exactly provide a works cited page.

What do you suggest I do? How do I keep the PS grammatically accurate?

Thanks

If you're going to quote, make the source clear. Example: As quoted by the New York Times, Congressman X said "...." or Congressman X told the NY Times (whatever).

If you can't make it work smoothly, then just don't include it. I doubt law schools will really be that interested in reading what various public figures previously said in what should be your statement.

[blurbz]

If you want to quote, you can just say X said, "yyyy." That's not the problem here, though: You have a very limited amount of space for your PS and the adcoms want to read what YOU have to say, not what famous people have to say. My advice is that you should find another way to write your PS that will make you, your writing, and your ideas the central points without being diluted by quotes, no matter how on-point they are.

[bb8900]

The public policy issue has had a huge affect on why I live in the United States. In order to go into detail about this (which is what my PS is about) I need to explain the policy first and how it was amended. Then I can talk about how it affected me and how I relate to it, etc.

As far as quoting, what if I got info from random online website. The info if factual, but I don't want to quote something like according to http://www.randomshit.com Senator XYZ said "...". That sounds terrible, but I still need that piece of info for it to make sense.

Similarly what If I am paraphrasing something that the US government released to explain the amendment. I want to paraphrase it in my own words to make sense, but clearly I got that info somewhere so I need to have a ("www.something.com")?

[SullaFelix]

The public policy issue has had a huge affect on why I live in the United States. In order to go into detail about this (which is what my PS is about) I need to explain the policy first and how it was amended. Then I can talk about how it affected me and how I relate to it, etc.

As far as quoting, what if I got info from random online website. The info if factual, but I don't want to quote something like according to http://www.randomshit.com Senator XYZ said "...". That sounds terrible, but I still need that piece of info for it to make sense.

Similarly what If I am paraphrasing something that the US government released to explain the amendment. I want to paraphrase it in my own words to make sense, but clearly I got that info somewhere so I need to have a ("www.something.com")?

randomshit.com still got the quote from somewhere. a floor statement? an interview with a newspaper? a televised appearance? it shouldn't be difficult to track down. if you can't, then just don't use the quote.

[Pizon]

Just put it in your own words (e.g., "it was reported that Senator XYZ was not happy with the legislation").