We received a question from Josh M about using quotations on SAT essays:

My English teacher loves quotes. She says that almost every paragraph in our papers needs to include at least one quote. It doesn't matter if it is from literature or a movie, just as long as it relates to the topic. So my question: Is adding quotes on the SAT a mistake? And if you misquote a piece of "classic literature," will the graders never let you forget it?

First, I want to comment on your teacher's fondness for quotes. I suspect she's emphasizing quotations in order to hammer home a very important rule of essay writing: Every point you make needs to be supported in some way. While direct quotes can provide effective support, you can also use facts, statistics, personal anecdotes, and historical examples. And you can paraphrase, which is a very important method for condensing your direct quotes. In fact, many teachers prefer paraphrasing to using direct quotes because it requires you to do more work: You're taking a little part of the quote and interpreting it, as opposed to filling up lots of space with a quote and leaving the reader to interpret its meaning.