Using Sources in Writing

What is Plagiarism?

Using ideas/words that are not your own without clearly acknowledging the source of the information.

Plagiarism is basically stealing.

How Can Students Avoid Plagiarism?

To avoid plagiarism, you must give credit whenever you use:

1. another person’s idea, opinion, or theory2. any facts, statistics, graphs, drawings, etc. 3. any piece of information that is not common

knowledge4. another person’s spoken or written words5. a paraphrase or summary of a person’s

spoken or written words

Three Ways to Avoid Plagiarism

Along with an in-text citation and Works Cited page, you can use a:

Direct Quote ParaphraseSummary

Direct Quote Copy the words exactly and put the words in quotation

marks. King states, “I felt a sense of responsibility which I could not

escape” (13). Use brackets when changing the form of words so that

the sentence makes grammatical sense or adding explanatory information. King stated that “[he] felt a sense of responsibility which [he]

could not escape” (13). Use ellipses to omit words. You can only do this to

conserve space–not to change the meaning of the thought. King stated that “[he] felt a sense of responsibility that [he]

could not escape…so [he] answered the calling” (13).

Paraphrase

Restate the author’s message, using your own words. You must make sure that you recreate the same meaning.

Do not use the author’s words.

A paraphrase can be the same length or longer than the original.

Summary

Write just the main ideas of the text.

Summaries are brief.

Citing Sources in your Essay

In-text Citations & Works Cited Page

In-text Citations

To avoid plagiarism, you must let your reader know that you are borrowing another person’s words or ideas and where you are borrowing them from.

Inside of your essay, you do this briefly with an in-text citation that tells the reader where to look on your Works Cited page to find the complete information for the source.

In-text Citations

Direct Quotes

You need to give the quote context, otherwise it does not make sense to the reader.

Introducing Quotes

The Naked Quote (Oh my!)

A naked quote is a quote that is plopped into an essay without any context.

Cover the

quote by

introducing

it.

For goodness’ sake, cover up that quote!

Ways to introduce & cite the quote.

Use a signal phrase that mentions the title and/or author.

That way, all you need in the parenthetical citation is the page number. If there is no page number, then you don’t need a parenthetical citation at all!

Example

In his article “There Is No Safe Sex,” Robert C. Noble writes, “Condoms aren’t going to make a dent in the sexual epidemics we are facing” (25).

Example

According to Janice Wentworth in her article “Love in the Time of the Influenza,” “Hand washing is one of the best defenses against germs.”

Blending Quotes

You can choose to blend, rather than introduce, a quote if it fits in with the rest of your sentence.

Example

One reason for this is that “a 4-year-old pygmy chimpanzee…has demonstrated what scientists say are the most human-like linguistic skills ever documented in another animal” (Eckholm A1).

Citing Quotes

If you decide not to include the title and/or author, you need to include a parenthetical citation. Include the following depending on how much information you have: Either…

(Last name page)(Title page)(Title)

Example

Currently, “twenty-four hundred city colleges are accredited within the United States” (“College Accreditation”).

Omitting part of a quote

In order to condense a quote, you may omit part of a quote using an ellipsis mark (…).

You may only do this if it does not changing the meaning of the author’s words.

You may only do this if the sentence will still make grammatical sense.

Example

In a recent New York Times article, Erick Eckholm reports, “A 4-year-old pygmy chimpanzee…has demonstrated what scientists say are the most human-like linguistic skills ever documented in another animal” (A1).

Altering or Adding to a Quote

Brackets ( [ ] ) allow you to insert words of your own into quoted material to:

explain a confusing reference keep your sentence grammatically

correct

Example

Robert Seyfarth reports, “Premack [a scientist at the University of Pennsylvania] taught a seven-year-old chimpanzee, Sarah, that the word for ‘apple’ was a small, plastic triangle” (13).

Long Quotations

When you quote more than four typed lines, you must set off the quote by indenting one inch (ten spaces) from the left margin.

Your introduction to the quote must be followed by a colon ( : ).

You DO NOT need to put quotation marks around the quote.

Example

Desmond describes how Washoe tried signing to the other apes when the Gardners returned her to an ape colony in Oklahoma:

One particularly memorable day, a snake spread terror through the castaways on ape island, and all but one fled in panic. This male sat absorbed, staring intently at the serpent (42).

Citing Your Sources in your essay

Paraphrases & Summaries

Citing Paraphrases & Summaries

Use a signal phrase that mentions the title and/or author.

That way, all you need in the parenthetical citation is the page number. If there is no page number, then you don’t need a parenthetical citation at all!

Example

According to Flora Davis, linguists and animal behaviorists were unprepared for the news that a chimp could communicate with its trainers through sign language (26).

Citing Paraphrases & Summaries

If you decide not to include the title and/or author, you need to include a parenthetical citation. Include the following depending on how much information you have: Either…

(Last name page)(Title page)(Title)

Example

When they learned of an ape’s ability to use sign language, both linguists and animal behaviorists were taken by surprise (Davis 26).

Exceptions

Please see the “MLA Citation” link on my website for exceptions or anything that was not covered here.