Using Sources in Writing

1. Using Sources in Writing

2. What is Plagiarism? • Using ideas/words that are not your own without clearly acknowledging the source of the information. • Plagiarism is basically stealing.

3. How Can Students Avoid Plagiarism? • To avoid plagiarism, you must give credit whenever you use: • another person’s idea, opinion, or theory • any facts, statistics, graphs, drawings, etc. • any piece of information that is not common knowledge • another person’s spoken or written words • a paraphrase or summary of a person’s spoken or written words

4. Three Ways to Avoid Plagiarism Along with an in-text citation and Works Cited page, you can use a: • Direct Quote • Paraphrase • Summary

5. 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 when adding explanatory information. • King states 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 states that “[he] felt a sense of responsibility that [he] could not escape…so [he] answered the calling” (13).

6. 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.

7. Summary • Write just the main ideas of the text. • Summaries are brief.

8. Citing Sources in your Essay In-text Citations & Works Cited Page

9. 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.

10. In-text Citations Direct Quotes

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

12. The Naked Quote (Oh my!) A naked quote is a quote that is plopped into an essay without any context. Eeewww!!

13. For goodness’ sake, cover up that quote! Cover the quote by introducing it.

14. Ways to introduce & cite the quote. • Use a signal phrase that mentions the title, genre, author, and author credentials. • That way, all you need in the parenthetical citation is the page number. • Also include any information about the article, study, etc. to help the reader understand the context of the quote.

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

16. Example According to Dr. Janice Wentworth of the UCLA Medical Center in her article “Love in the Time of the Influenza,” “Hand washing is one of the best defenses against germs” (17).

17. Vary Signal Phrases • In order to avoid monotony, vary your signal phrases • In the words of_______ • As ________ has noted • _________ points out that • …claims _______ • __________ asserts

18. Using the Same Source Multiple Times. • Once you have introduced a source, you only need to refer to the author’s last name if you use the source again in the same paragraph. Yay! • BUT…if you use the same source in a different paragraph, you need to use the author’s complete name again. Boo!

19. Example In his article “There Is No Safe Sex,” the sociologist Robert C. Noble writes, “Condoms aren’t going to make a dent in the sexual epidemics we are facing” (25). Noble also emphasizes the fact that even if the majority of sexually active people used condoms, “they still only have a 97% success rate” (39).

20. Blending Quotes You can choose to blend, rather than introduce, a quote if it fits in with the rest of your sentence. This means you will not mention the title, genre, or author.

21. Citing Blended Quotes If you choose to blend your quote, you need to include a parenthetical citation. Include the following depending on how much information you have: Either… (Last name page) (First Few Words of Title… page) • make sure to properly punctuate the title…either quotes or italics.

22. 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).

23. Example Currently, it seems that our nation’s students have several worthwhile options since “twenty-four hundred city colleges are accredited within the United States” (“College Accreditation” 18).

24. 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 change the meaning of the author’s words. • You may only do this if the sentence will still make grammatical sense.

25. 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).

26. 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

27. Example • In his article “Brother from another Mother,” 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).

28. 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.

29. Example In his groundbreaking article,“Returning Home: Washoe’s Story”Desmond Fremont describes how an ape named Washoe tried signing to the other apes when her trainers 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).

30. Citing Your Sources in your essay Paraphrases & Summaries

31. Citing Paraphrases & Summaries • Use a signal phrase that mentions the title, genre, author credentials and author. • That way, all you need in the parenthetical citation is the page number. • Also include any information about the article, study, etc. to help the reader understand the context of the information.

32. Example According to Flora Davis in her article “Ape Sign Language,” linguists and animal behaviorists were unprepared for the news that a chimp could communicate with its trainers through sign language (26).

33. 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) (First Few Words of Title… page) • don’t forget to properly punctuate the title…either with italics or quotation marks

34. Exceptions For exceptions, please go to: -my website -CP English 4 -Senior Project -Essay -MLA Citations