In the poem “Imma Let You Integrate Quotations!” by Melvin Middleschool-Writer, it talks about a writing style that wastes words. “Those long quotations, dropping awkward into the essay / Hijack your thoughts / Like a Kanye who graciously accepts a microphone from Taylor Swift  / So he can confidently mansplain it all.” This quote means that students who interrupt their own essays  with a lengthy, not-contextualized quoted passage, and then follow that quote with a separate sentence that carefully paraphrases the obvious surface-level content of the quote, are like Taylor Swift inviting herself to be interrupted. Which is different from what really happened because Kanye grabbed the microphone.

The MLA-style in-text citation is a highly compressed format, designed to synthesize the flow of your own ideas with the power and precision of brief factual references. Clunky mechanics will overpower your original thoughts. (Integrate your quotations.)

(See also: Academic Writing; Thesis Statements.)