WRITING COURSE 6: USING SOURCES - Access to English Social ...

When we read a text we naturally assume that,unless we are told otherwise, the language usedand the ideas expressed are the writer’s own.What we are going to look at here is how to tellthe reader otherwise. For when writing texts, ofwhatever genre, we sometimes need to borrowother people’s words, either because they lendan air of authenticity (for example, in a newsreport), because they are necessary as “evidence” (for example, in a book review), orquite simply because someone has expressedsomething so well that it can’t be bettered. Inall of these cases, and many others, using otherpeople’s words is not only permissible – it’s excellent. If it is done the right way, this sort ofborrowing can lift a text and make it moreprofessional.

The key to this “right way” is honesty and clarity. The reader must be in no doubt aboutwhose words or ideas he is reading. If there isany doubt, the impression given will be one ofcloudiness and dishonesty.

Quoting and referring

“To quote” means to repeat someone else’swords, and the first demand we must make ofa quotation is that it has to be exact. If wedon’t know the exact wording of a quotation,then we shouldn’t treat it as a quotation at all,but as a reference (see below). If we do havethe exact wording, we must signal where thequotation starts and finishes.

The Prime Minister made it perfectly clearthat there would be no turning back: “No,I’ve made my decision. Hairdressing is theonly important thing in my life. I’m leavingpolitics and starting a salon in Witney.”

338 A WORLD OF LITERATURE

Notice the use of quotation marks. A colon isused before the quotation here because thequotation itself starts with a whole sentence. Ifthe quotation starts in mid-sentence, no colonis required:

The Prime Minister made it clear that therewould be no going back on his decision toleave politics, saying that hairdressing was“the only important thing in my life”.

Using quotations is a useful tool in writingtexts – but don’t overdo it! A short, highly rele-vant quotation is better than a long, slightlyrelevant one. Avoid quoting long paragraphsand, above all, don’t let the quotations becomea substitute for your own explanations andreasoning.

WRITING COURSE 6: USING SOURCES

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It has not been possible to identify the sources of allthe material used (or trace all the copyright own-ers), and in such cases the publishers would wel-come information from copyright owners. Thepublishers are grateful to the authors, publishersand others who have given permission for the useof copyright material.

Sources for diagrams, statistics, etc.

– Table 1 (p. 17): Based on Ethnologue: Languagesof the World, 15th ed. (2005); Wikipedia: TheFuture of English – British Council

– Table 2 (p. 17): Based onhttp://paradoxoff.com/language-usage-statis-tics-from-wikipedia.html /http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia: Multi-lingual_statistics

– Timeline (p. 38): Based on New Scientist, 16 July2011

– “Historical firsts” (p. 39): Based onhttp://www.newscientist.com/article/dn14957-first-contact-pioneering-messages-from-new-technology.html

– Chart 1 (p. 42): Based onhttp://w3techs.com/technologies/overview/ -content_language/all

– Chart 2 (p. 43): Based on http://www.internet-worldstats.com/stats.htm

– Task 6c (p. 57): Based onhttp://www.netlingo.com/tips/cyber-safety- statistics.php

– UK chart p. 110: KS06 Etnic group: Estimates2009 / US chart p. 110: US Census 2008

– British national identity poll (p. 115):http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_groups_in_the_United_Kingdom#Multiculturalism_and_integration

– Task 5 (p. 145): Based onhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Australia

350 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

– Graph (p. 165): Based onhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late-2000s_finan-cial_crisis

– Statistics (p. 209): Based onhttp://www.ssb.no/utuvh_en/tab-2011-05-20-01-en.html / http://www.ssb.no/english/sub-jects/00/minifakta_en/en/main_07.html /http://www.lanekassen.no/english

Texts

“The Song of the Banana Man” by Evan Jones, fromThe Penguin Book of Caribbean Verse in English.Copyright © 1986. Penguin Group UK

“Neighbors” by Tim Winton from Scission, pub-lished by McPhee Gribble, Penguin Books Aus-tralia, Ltd. Penguin Group Aus.

“Wherever I Hang” by Grace Nichols from LazyThoughts of a Lazy Woman, published by TimWarner Books, UK / Curtis Brown.

“The Migrant” by A.L. Hendriks from To SpeakSimply: Selected Poems 1961-1986, published byHippopotamus Press, 1986

Excerpt from “Transmission” by Hari Kunzru,Copyright © 2004 Hari Kunzru, published byHamish Hamilton, 2004. Penguin Group UK

“Butterflies” by Patricia Grace from Electric Cityand Other Sources, Penguin Books (NZ) Ltd.

“NGOs – Beyond state Control” by Marit LågøyrBrandt

“A Shocking Accident” by Graham Greene fromCollected Stories, 1967, published by PenguinPutnam Inc. David Higham Ass.

Excerpt “When Rich Came to Sunday Dinner” fromThe Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan, published byPenguin Putnam Inc.

“Reporting from the Frontline of the Great Dic-tionary Disaster” by John Agard, from Alterna-tive Anthem: Selected Poems with Live DVD(Bloodaxe Books, 2009)

A C K N O W L E D G E M E N T S


If we don’t use the exact words of another per-son – if we change them slightly – does thatmean we can do what we like with them? Theanswer is no. If we borrow words or even ideasand make them our own, we must still abideby the principle of honesty and clarity. Imag-ine, for example, that you are writing an articleor an essay about nuclear power and you comeacross the following quotation:

My point is that abandoning nuclear powerat a time of escalating greenhouse gas emis-sions is far more dangerous than maintainingit. To abandon it in the knowledge that muchof that power will be replaced with unabatedfossil fuel is even worse. (“Greens must notprioritise renewables over climate change”by George Monbiot, The Guardian 8th August 2011)

As it happens, you agree with Mr Monbiot andyou want to include the point in yourarticle/essay. There are four ways of doing this;two of them are acceptable, two of them arenot. See if you can decide which ones are not:

a. I believe that this is not the time to give up onnuclear power as a source of energy. If we dowe will just have to make more use of fossilfuels, which could be much more dangerousthan nuclear power in the long run.

b. In my view abandoning nuclear power at atime of escalating greenhouse gas emissions isfar more dangerous than maintaining it. Andto do so in the knowledge that much of thatpower will be replaced with unabated fossilfuel is even worse.

c. As George Monbiot writes in The Guardian,“abandoning nuclear power at a time of esca-

A WORLD OF LITERATURE 339

lating greenhouse gas emissions is far moredangerous than maintaining it”. He believesthat replacing nuclear power with “unabatedfossil fuel” is a worse solution.

d. I strongly agree with George Monbiot. Aban-doning nuclear power at a time of escalatinggreenhouse gas emissions is far more danger-ous than maintaining it. And to do so in theknowledge that much of that power will bereplaced with unabated fossil fuel is evenworse.

Texts a. and c. are acceptable. In a. the writerhas put the ideas into his/her own language, sono acknowledgement is required. In c. Mon-biot’s words are quoted exactly with acknow -ledgement and clear quotation marks. In b.almost the whole text is stolen property. This isplagiarism – in other words, cheating. In d. anacknowledgement has been made, but there isstill some stealing going on, because it is notmade clear that the wording itself is Monbiot’s,not just the opinion.

Notice that here the ideas in the text are notseen as Monbiot’s property. After all, he is notthe originator of them, and he is far frombeing the only one to hold them. If we comeacross an idea in an article or a book that isnew to us, we should acknowledge the source.There are also more familiar ideas and theoriesthat clearly have an originator – Darwin’s theory of evolution, for example – that shouldbe acknowledged.

Paraphrasing and summarising

Text a. above is an example of paraphrasing –i.e. expressing someone else’s ideas in your


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need to fight poverty at the source; the system. Are you willing to help?

d A business report is a standard form ofbusiness communication that combinesqualitative and quantitative information ina logical format, serving as critical corpo-rate documentation. Business reports present information-based views of the enterprise to appropriate audiences and canbe automatically individualized for eachuser.

e Notwithstanding some continuing uncertainty over global economic develop-ments, BMO’s sustained momentum andthe success of our initiatives to focus on thecustomer experience are serving us well.Our outlook remains positive.

3+ Explain your decisions in task 2 by pointingto examples of language and style in thetexts.

4+ The texts below refer to the new tax schemeintroduced by President Barack Obama inthe fall of 2011. Write a text in which youdetermine what type of source you thinkeach comes from. Refer to language clues inyour answer.

a “Class warfare!” Obama’s harshest criticsscream in a voice usually reserved forphrases such as “Run for your lives!” Spareus the histrionics. The upper-crust, our na-tion’s greedy one per cent, have been wag-ing an undeclared but devastating waragainst middle-class, working-class andpoor Americans for decades. Now theyscream bloody murder at the notion thatlong-suffering victims might finally hitback.


President Obama’s proposal to boosttaxes for the wealthy by $1.5 trillion overthe next decade is a good first step towardreforming a system in which billionairehedge-fund executives are taxed at a lowerrate than are their chauffeurs and privatechefs.

b WASHINGTON – President Obama will onMonday call for a new minimum tax ratefor individuals making more than $1 mil-lion a year to ensure that they pay at leastthe same percentage of their earnings asmiddle-income taxpayers, according to administration officials.

With a special joint Congressional com-mittee starting work to reach a bipartisanbudget deal by late November, the proposaladds a new feature to Mr Obama’s effort toraise the political pressure on Republicansto agree to higher revenues from thewealthy in return for Democrats’ supportof future cuts from Medicare and Medicaid.

c It was a sort of mindless twaddle that wascoming out of his lefty mouth. Like this.“We don’t want to punish success.” The hellyou don’t! The whole point of redistribu-tion is based on the idea that the successfuldon’t deserve it because they’ve done noth-ing to earn it. They have been lucky – andmore than that, they’ve been lucky probablyby cheating the people that don’t have asmuch as they do. So he says, “This is notbecause we want to punish success.” Theydamn well do. It’s one of the leftist credos:punish achievement.


own words. It is a useful way of avoiding longquotations, although it doesn’t necessarilymean that you don’t have to acknowledge thesource. That will depend on whether the ideascan be seen as coming from one particular person, or from a more general discussion.

Paraphrasing can be tricky – there is always thetemptation to use the phrasing of the originaltext. A good way to avoid this is to read theoriginal text carefully, but not have it in frontof you when you are writing your paraphrase.Afterwards you can check that your version accurately expresses the ideas in the originalwithout using its phrasing. If there are phrasesthat you simply cannot do without, rememberthat it is quite permissible to blend paraphraseand quotation, provided you make it clearwhich is which, by using quotation marks (asin c. above).

A summary is a form of paraphrase, only herethe aim is to focus on the main idea of theoriginal text. A summary is therefore shorterthan the original. Being able to write sum-maries is a very useful skill for a writer.Whether we are writing about literature (e.g.reviews) or about factual events (e.g. news arti-cles), it is often necessary to sum up quitecomplicated narratives without them takingtoo much space or focus. For tips on writingsummaries, look at Toolbox on our website.

Documenting sources

In a formal text, like an essay, a project or a report, we should not only make it clear whenwe are quoting and referring, we should alsodocument our sources. This should be doneboth in the text (briefly) and in a list of sources


– a bibliography – at the end (in more detail).There are many different schools of thoughtabout the best way to do this. Since you willprobably not be writing your doctoral thesisthis year, you don’t need to be too worriedabout the details. The important thing is to beconsistent so that your documentation is easyto understand. The following documentationmethod should serve you well:

Referring to sources in the text

After the quotation or reference, write thename of author, the date of the publicationand the page number of the source beingquoted from or referred to:

Example: As Melvyn Bragg puts it, “theEnglish laboured and theFrench feasted” (Bragg, 2003,p. 51).

For an article in a newspaper, we drop the pagereference:

Example: Monbiot argues that somegreens are “putting renewablesfirst, climate change second”(Monbiot, 2011)

If we don’t know the author, as might be thecase with websites, we give the name of thesource instead:

Example: Satellite observations indicatethat ice in the Arctic Sea is dis-appearing at the rate of 11.5%per decade (Wikipedia, 2011).


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cution Davis addressed some comments to thefamily of his victim while he was strapped tothe gurney.

He told them: “I did not personally killyour son, father, brother.” He also asked hissupporters to “dig deeper” into the case sothey could “find the real truth.”

Davis was pronounced dead at 11.08pmlocal time.

This follows the principles of the news articlegenre. It is objective and features direct quotesand unbiased information about the case. Thetone is neutral; it neither disagrees with the execution, nor does it suggest an opinion aboutthis case or capital punishment in general.

The following text is the opening paragraph ofan editorial on the same issue:

There is yet another great and bloody gash onthe soul of America right now, because we allowed a state-sponsored killing of a poten-tially innocent man to occur in our name, onour watch. Fellow Americans, we must endthe uncivilized and inhuman act of the deathpenalty, of killing people convicted of or believed to be murderers, immediately. If slavery was barbaric and morally wrong in itstime, then the death penalty is barbaric andmorally wrong in ours.

It is obvious that the author of this text is anopponent of the death penalty (“state-spon-sored killing”, “potentially innocent man”,etc.). Thus the writer also has a politicalagenda, and this must be considered whenchoosing whether to use the text.


T A S K S1 Write a text on how effective you think the

ad below is, focusing on the connotationsand the combination of words and picture.

2 Determine what genre each text below belongs to:

a When I’m in New York or Washington,people talk passionately about debt and political battles. But in the living rooms oron the front porches here in Yamhill, Ore.,where I grew up, a different specter wakesfriends up in the middle of the night. It’sunemployment.

b Hurricane Irene made landfall on the coastof New Jersey early Sunday morning andcontinued its relentless push to the NewYork City area, shutting down mass transit,causing flooding and cutting power tomore than a million people.

c Poverty is perhaps the greatest global prob-lem we have today. Poverty means hunger.Poverty means suffering. Poverty createsanger and poverty cultivates terrorists. We


Bibliography

Brief in-text citations like this can only be usedif you have a bibliography at the end in whichthe sources are given in detail. In a bibli -o graphy the sources are given in alphabeticalorder, using the author’s surname (or the pub-lication, if the author is unknown). As well asthe author and date of publication, the bibli- o graphy entry should give the name of the ar-ticle or book and the name and location of thepublisher. There are slightly different ways ofdoing this for different sorts of sources. Theimportant thing is to be clear and consistent:

Book:Bragg, Melvyn. The Adventure of English:The Biography of a Language, Hodder &Stoughton, London 2003

Article:Monbiot, George. “Greens must not priori-tise renewables over climate change.” August 8, 2011 The GuardianWikipedia. “Climate change”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climatechange– accessed October 11, 2011

Remember that direct use of sources, for example in interviews, email correspondenceor chat groups, should also be listed in yourbibliography:

Smith, Fred. October 13, 2011. InterviewBloggs, Bill. July 3, 2011. Email to Merete

Strøm.Styles, Fatima. September 14, 2011. “Re:

Italian Food”. Online posting. Wireclub


T A S K S

1 Read the following extract (slightlyabridged) from a blog entitled “Football isstupid” written by a blogger called a1word.

I will start by saying what it is not. It isnot religion and it is not an illegal nar-cotic. Saying that, it does seem to causemany sufferers (or addicts) to seesaw between states of bliss and devastation,spend far more money than they can af-ford, destroy their closest relationshipsand even disfigure themselves with tattoos. Fans (as they are better known)collectively ignore the fact they are watching grownups chasing a leather air bubblewhilst being shouted at by thousands ofmen. Fans subject themselves to this ex -perience on a regular basis either at stadi-ums or in public venues where they canalso drink alcohol. These experiences arethen replayed, analysed, dissected and dis-cussed for years and years after the event.It goes without saying that football is aphenomenon that we are only just begin-ning to understand, a bit like god or theappeal of cats. http://a1word.hubpages.com/hub/Foot-ball-is-Stupid


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The report will often use typical transitionphrases for expressing one’s opinion and creat-ing a flow to the argument, such as:

in my opinion; it is my view that; this ideanotwithstanding; moreover, I feel that; on theother hand; nonetheless; nevertheless; contrary to what you might think; although;similarly; therefore; consequently; accordingly

and many more.

Personal commentary and blogs

A personal commentary is a person’s responseto an issue, feeling or event. It can also be a response to a given question or task. Clearlysubjective, it is often built on the writer’s ownexperiences, feelings and associations, and generally tends to be quite informal with theintention of being thought-provoking or humorous, rather than argumentative. News-paper columnists and professional authorsoften write personal commentary on dailyevents and life in general.

Today, many writers, both professionals andamateurs, have turned to the internet whereblogging and Facebook have become impor-tant outlets for their commentaries. The per-sonal blog will be an expressive text, but it maybe informal or formal depending on the targetaudience and the intentions of the writer. Inshort, with blogs just about everything goes.

Judging sources

If you find a news article on the internet froma source you have never heard of, you can ofcourse first check the name and address of thesite for clues about the origins of the text (seeToolbox on our website). But language clues


can also help you judge whether the article youare reading is biased. For example, this internetarticle about a man recently executed in theUnited States should set off warning bells.

Cop killer Troy Davis finally got his just re-ward last night for murdering a police officerin a crowded Burger King parking lot. Ofcourse, as per usual with lefties, their sympa-thies are with the criminal, not the victim.

The text starts by describing Troy Davis usingthe adjective “cop killer”, omitting the adjec-tive “convicted”, which would be the properlegal term and would have made the text moreneutral. The phrase “finally got his just reward” eliminates any sense of a balanced report on the execution. In the second sentencethe term “lefties”, a coined term which we canassume refers to Democrats, leaves no doubtabout the writer’s political leanings.

Here is how the same story is presented in aBritish newspaper:

Troy Davis executed in Georgia afterlast-minute plea failsDeath row prisoner Troy Davis has been executed in one of the most controversialAmerican capital punishment cases in years. Davis, 42, was put to death by lethal injectionafter a last minute appeal to the US SupremeCourt failed, and his request to take a poly-graph test was also turned down.

The appeal to the US Supreme Court led toa temporary delay of more than three hours.

Davis maintained his innocence to the end,saying: “I did not have a gun. For those aboutto take my life, may God have mercy on yoursouls. May God bless your souls.”

According to those who witnessed the exe-


Below is an extract from an essay that refersto the blog above. Correct the punctuationin the essay extract so that the quotationsare incorporated correctly into the text.

a1word argues that while football is neither areligion nor a drug, it has the same power asboth to make its followers seesaw betweenstates of bliss and devastation. Fans fail torecognise that the sport is just aboutgrownups chasing a leather air bubble whilstbeing shouted at by thousands of men. Notsatisfied with just watching a match, fans arehappy to have them replayed, analysed, dis-sected and discussed for years after the event.

2+ Write a paraphrase of the views that a1wordexpresses in the text (task 1), acknowledg-ing the source of the text. You should useyour own language as far as possible, exceptfor the underlined passages, which youshould use as quotations in your text.

3 Write a paragraph or two in which you givea personal response to a1word’s blog text.Feel free to refer directly to words andphrases that a1word uses, but do so accord-ing to the principles of honesty and clarity!

4 Think of the last film you saw or the lastbook you read. (Alternatively, your favoritefilm or book.) Write as short a summary asyou can of the plot of the film/book.


5+ Below is a list of sources for a written project about the European discovery andsettlement of Australia. They have beennoted down quickly and randomly. Turnthem into a proper bibliography.

• A book called The Fatal Shore by RobertHughes, published in London by Collinsin 1987

• A book by Richard Gough, called Cap-tain James Cook: A Biography published1994 by Hodder & Stoughton in London

• A web page at the Parliament of NewSouth Wales’s web site entitled “1788 to1810 – Early European Settlement”, accessed this morning at www.parlia-ment.nsw.gov.au/prod/web/common.nsf/key/historyearlyeuropeansettlement

• Article by Annabel Crabb published inthe Sydney Morning Herald on February17, 2008 entitled “Ancient tensions failto mar apology”.


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WRITING COURSE 6: USING SOURCES - Access to English Social ...

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