Using and Managing Sources of Information

Using and Managing Sources of Information Making information your own, legally

Managing Information 1.Evaluate 2. Summarize 3. Document 4. Organize

2. Summarize the information. • As soon as you finish reading a piece (article, report, even an abstract), summarize it in your own words. • the contents • the relevance (or not) to your project • Summarizing makes a manageable paragraph out of a much bigger work. • Save your summaries in a word file. You can use them in documents you write.

Integrate source material into your own work. • Describing information in your own words helps you integrate it into your own documents. • Be sure to differentiate between conclusions of fact and inference. • “Extensive laboratory studies suggest that enhanced bioremediation might be applicable to stranded oil on the beaches of Prince William Sound.”

3. Document your Sources • Help yourself retrieve information later! • Help others learn from your work. • Establish your credibility as a technical professional. • Show your work as part of a continuum of investigation. • Even design projects very often have multiple designers and previous work to start from. Why??

Other Big Reasons to Document Sources • To keep the distinction between what you said, developed, invented, discovered and what others discovered/said. • To protect the expression of ideas (yours and others’). • Patents • Graphs/tables/figures • Written expressions: parts of reports, proposals, technical descriptions, web sites, etc., etc.

Plagiarism is a problem for professional writers, not just students. • Stephen Ambrose “Over the weekend, the Weekly Standard's Fred Barnes nailed Ambrose for heisting several passages of The Wild Blue, his recent best seller about World War II B-24 bomber crews, from historian Thomas Childers. Ambrose had footnoted Childers but still passed off Childers' elegant prose as his own.” David Plotz “The Plagiarist: Why Stephen Ambrose is a vampire.”http://slate.msn.com/?id=2060618, Jan. 11, 2002. • Doris Kearns Goodwin “Goodwin's "The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys" borrowed with insufficient attribution from three earlier works by other authors.” Bo Crader “A Historian and Her Sources” http://slate.msn.com/?id=2061056, Jan. 28, 2002

Two important questions: • If you cite the source of the words, can you then use the same words without quotation marks? • Answer: no, not if a reader might think that those descriptive words were your words. • The federal Office of Research Integrity defines plagiarism as the “intention to deceive.” The problem is that ignorance is no excuse. • Can you change just a few words here and there? What is “paraphrase” anyway?

Is 2nd paragraph a paraphrase of 1st? • “On August 28, 1859, Custer returned to West Point. Cadet James Barroll Washington, a great-great-grandnephew of George Washington, entered that year. He remembered hearing the crowd shout, 'Here comes Custer!' The name meant nothing to him, but he turned, and saw a slim, immature lad with unmilitary figure, slightly rounded shoulders, and gangling walk." From Custer: The Life of General George Armstrong Custer by Jay Monaghan • "When he returned to West Point, Cadet James B. Washington, a relative of George Washington, remembered hearing the crowd shout, 'Here comes Custer!' The name meant nothing to Washington, who was just entering the Academy, but he turned and saw a slim, immature lad with unmilitary figure, slightly rounded shoulders, and gangling walk, surrounded by back-slapping, laughing friends." From Crazy Horse and Custer by Stephen Ambrose

Why does plagiarism happen? • You fail to include citation (in text and in reference list at end of document). Happens for many reasons: • You don’t have the citation information • You don’t know how to cite. • You don’t know that you need to tell the reader where you got every “borrowed” idea or significant group of words. • Common technical names and phrases do not count: in-situ remediation of hazardous waste • You think that documenting sources of information will make your work seem less professional.

What about quoting, paraphrasing, or citing engineering writing? • Do the same plagiarism rules apply? • Don’t technical concepts and descriptions have to be worded very precisely? So, how can we paraphrase? • Isn’t the author of technical work unimportant? (After all, we don’t use “I” very often.)

Exact wording from a website An alternative to the common drain field is the Seepage Pit (Dry Well). In this type, liquid flows to a pre-cast tank with sidewall holes, surrounded by gravel. (Older versions usually consist of a pit with open-jointed brick or stone walls.) Liquid seeps through the holes or joints to the surrounding soil.

How to use information from sources: • Quote in full, using quotation marks. • Use part quotation and part paraphrase. • Paraphrase. All 3 of these uses require an in-text citation to the source and a complete Reference List at end of document.

Quote in full As experts have noted, the drain field is not the only possible septic system. “An alternative to the common drain field is the Seepage Pit (Dry Well). In this type, liquid flows to a pre-cast tank with sidewall holes, surrounded by gravel. (Older versions usually consist of a pit with open-jointed brick or stone walls.) Liquid seeps through the holes or joints to the surrounding soil”(Miller 2004). Note the smooth introduction to the quotation.

Part paraphrase, part quotation • P. Miller describes the Seepage Pit (Dry Well) as an alternative to the drain field. “In this type, liquid flows to a pre-cast tank with sidewall holes, surrounded by gravel. (Older versions usually consist of a pit with open-jointed brick or stone walls.) Liquid seeps through the holes or joints to the surrounding soil” (2004).

All paraphrase • P. Miller describes the Seepage Pit (Dry Well) as an alternative to the drain field (2004). In this drainage method, liquid seeps into the soil surrounding the pre-cast tank into which it has first flowed. When you paraphrase, the author’s name can quite naturally become part of your sentence.

Plagiarism is a matter of accountability. • If you copy Miller’s description and don’t use quotation marks, you become responsible for the truth and accuracy of his statements. Even his statement in parentheses becomes your responsibility: • “(Older versions usually consist of a pit with open-jointed brick or stone walls.)” • Even if you cite Miller’s work, we cannot be sure which specific ideas you got from him.

What if you use these words from the McDonald’s website without quotation marks? • McDonald's has a long-standing commitment to environmental protection. Our restaurants around the world have innovative programs for recycling, resource conservation, and waste reduction. “McDonald's has a long-standing commitment to environmental protection. Our restaurants around the world have innovative programs for recycling, resource conservation, and waste reduction” (McDonald’s, accessed 2007).

In these paragraphs from the Introduction to a report . . . • Where are ideas or words obviously taken from somewhere other than the writer’s own brain? • Where do you have questions about the content because it’s not general knowledge and you might like to know more? • Where do you want to see evidence of the author’s credibility? – i.e., “How does he/she know that?”

Be careful about unintentionally plagiarizing. • If you copy words, you must do two things: • Document (cite) the source and • Use quotation marks • Remember: facts that are “established knowledge” don’t have to be cited and documented, but specialized information (exact figures and results from published studies) does. • If in doubt about whether to cite source, cite it! • Improper citation is way better than no citation.

Other Resources to Help You Avoid Plagiarism • UT’s Scholastic Dishonesty policy • PRiME Module on plagiarism: http://www.engr.utexas.edu/ethics/ownershipIdeas/lesson2/index.cfm • Writing Tutorial Services, Indiana University • Plagiarism: What It is and How to Recognize and Avoid It

Document your sources as you do the research. • Collect information when you locate source. • Format documentation according to guidelines. • Collect these pieces of information: author, date, title of work, title of larger work, publication info. • For electronic sources, add this information: electronic address, date of access

Set up a document-management system to do two things: Allow you to access information you need later Document your sources correctly – check format requirements at beginning of research project! Don’t download everything! 4. Organize the Information

Storing Information • Store documentation information in one word-processing file. • Cut and paste between browser and word file • Collect enough info. to get back to that source. • Copy and paste citation data from library’s online catalog • Annotate each entry as you go along. • Write brief description and note to yourself about usefulness of that source. Summarize your summary. • Be sure to save all info in one file – might as well alphabetize right from the start! A B

Using and Managing Sources of Information