Add a Signal Phrase

You can now start building your sandwich, starting from the middle and moving upward.

Once again, let's review:

Topic Sentence   Signal Phrase   Evidence "The food in Israel is tasty" (Sanchez). Wrap

You already have the "inside" of your sandwich (your evidence). Now, working upward, you need a signal phrase. The job of the signal phrase is to introduce your evidence. Mostly, it answers the question: Who said it?

The most useful of all the signal phrases is:

• According to

But we still have a choice to make: Are we going to cite the author in the signal phrase? Or would you like to cite the name of the website? (We could even cite the title of the article, but this usually results in an awkward sentence).

Our two best choices would look like this:

• According to Sally Sanchez, "The food in Israel is tasty (Sanchez)."
• According to the website Israel Tourism, "The food in Israel is tasty" (Sanchez).

If we go with the first choice (and cite the name), then we must remember the "Name Rule".

Name Rule: The first time you introduce someone, use their first and last name and an appositive which describes who they are. Thereafter, use only the person's last name.

An appositive is a short phrase which describes the person's occupation or relevance. So now we ask ourselves: Who is Sally Sanchez? Is she a:

• tourist
• author
• travel writer
• chef
• blogger
• food critic

Furthermore, we must keep in mind the "Appositive Rule":

Appositive Rule: If the appositive is long, put it after the name and place it between parenthetical commas. If the appositive is short, place it before the name, and in this case do not put a comma between the appositive and the name. Examples: Donald Trump, the president of the United States, claims that . . . President Donald Trump claims that . . .

And if we decide to cite the website in the signal phrase (instead of the author), keep in mind that websites are always italicized, wherever they appear in your paper.

Keeping all these things in mind, here are some examples of ways that you could introduce your evidence with a signal phrase:

• According Sally Sanchez, a tourist who visited Israel in 2014, "The food in Israel is delicious" (Sanchez).
• According to travel writer Sally Sanchez, "The food in Israel is delicious" (Sanchez).
• According to the website Israel Tourism, "The food in Israel is delicious" (Sanchez).
• According to Sally Sanchez, a writer for the website Israel Tourism, "The food in Israel is delicious" (Sanchez).
• According to a blogger called Sally Sanchez, "The food in Israel is delicious" (Sanchez).
• According to food critic Sally Sanchez, "The food in Israel is delicious" (Sanchez).

Of course there are other possibilities too. But let's leave those for later.

Lesson Steps

1 Write a signal phrase that introduces your evidence. 2 If you cited the author's name in your signal phrase, did you remember to include an appositive? 3 If you included an appositive in your signal phrase, did you punctuate it correctly, according to the Appositive Rule? Appositive Rule: If the appositive is long, put it after the name and place it between parenthetical commas. If the appositive is short, place it before the name, and in this case do not put a comma between the appositive and the name. 4 If your signal phrase includes the name of a website, did you remember to italicize it? 5 Check your work. Your paper should now look very much like this: Jamaica: A Wonderful Vacation Destination   According to travel writer John Smith, "The food in Jamaica is delicious" (Smith).     Works Cited Smith, John. "Name of Article." Jeff's Travel Blog. 8 June 2016. Web. 17 Mar. 2017. <http://jeffsblog.com/jamaica.html>.   6 Congratulations! You're done with this lesson.