"To [quote], or not to [quote]? That is the question."

Everybody loves quoting. As a high-school student, my first instinct when writing a paper is to find a quote and build my argument around it. It’s much easier to add on to someone else’s words than to write words of your own. The problem with this is the tendency to let the quote speak for itself rather than explaining it. In the words of Maria Konnikova, a writer for the New York Times, “Quotation becomes a way not to add depth to your thinking, but to avoid thinking in the first place.”

See what I did right there? I didn’t bother to flesh out my argument at all. I could’ve used any quote there that said the same thing because I just left a blank space. I just quoted because the line was readily available and I have a healthy appreciation for irony. But most people use quotation because it’s an easy way to avoid thinking and to save time.

Quotes are abundant online. I can go search ‘quotes’ into google and get about 215,000,000 results in .2 seconds. So when a teacher assigns a paper with “a minimum of FIVE quotes,” why shouldn’t I pull phrases from sources online in order to meet the quota? I can use a quote as a springboard to develop my entire argument. But in the words of Konnikova, “when we strip away context, we strip away everything that enables us to determine what something really means. Words themselves become decorative — evocative, perhaps, but denuded of their essence.” Americans have the tendency to focus on the decoration instead of the substance.

In the North Shore especially you can look out the window and see a cluster of mothers in full exercise gear -LuluLemon yoga pants, pink tennis shirts, visors- drinking Starbucks and not even exercising. What’s the point of dressing up like you’re going to the gym when you’re actually just going to chat with your child’s friend’s parents? It’s to give the appearance of fitness. And while they take clothes out of context to look good, their children grow up to go to New Trier and write papers that consist almost entirely of quotations to make them sound smarter.

Always remember these words of Ralph Waldo Emerson: “I HATE quotation. Tell me what you know.”

Do you think that excessive use of quotation should be encouraged? Have you ever found yourself relying on quotation when you don't know what to write?