Taking a Closer Look: Incorporating Research into Your Paper

He said, she said... One of the biggest challenges of writing a research paper is incorporating information from sources into your paper in such a way that you avoid plagiarizing the information from those sources.

For the purposes of this discussion, plagiarism will be defined as using someone else's work without giving that person proper credit (and, thus, giving yourself credit by the sin of omission, however unintentionally). Avoiding plagiarism involves taking such steps as properly citing your sources with in-text citations and with a list of works cited or of references (depending on your method of documenting source materials) and properly using information from sources in your paper.

There are three ways that you can include information from your sources--quoting, summarizing, and paraphrasing. When you include a quotation in your paper, you use the exact words of the source's author. When you include a summary in your paper, you write a short restatement, using your own words, of the content of a passage, article, or book.

When you paraphrase in your paper, you're restating the original source in your own words, as you would in a summary, but, unlike a summary, a paraphrase is approximately the same length as the original source.

Questions so far? If so, please ask! The more questions you ask, the more you learn.

Using quotations in a research paper is certainly encouraged, but only to a certain extent. For the most part, the words in your paper should be your own. Thus, most of the information from your sources should be summarized or paraphrased. You can quote me on that.

However, there are times when you'll want to quote something directly, particularly in the following situations: When the source writer's language is particularly distinctive and/or memorable and adds distinct interest to your paper When the source writer's language is so clear and concise that to put her ideas into your own words would be wasteful and/or ineffective When you want to reinforce the authority of the source writer

While quoting sources directly is probably the most popular method of using information from sources, quotations should be used sparingly so as to increase the effect of the ones that you do use.

In short... Summarizing a source is probably the most practical way of using information from sources in a research paper, but they're not necessarily easy to write. To summarize an essay, article, or book, you shouldn't include your own thoughts on the issue at hand. Rather, you should describe the source as objectively as possible, whether you agree with it or not.

In a summary, it's okay to use pertinent quotations by the author occasionally, working them in where appropriate, but a summary should be composed of almost entirely your own words. However, it's important to note that any conspicuous words, phrases, or terms should be put in quotation marks. Sometimes, there just isn't a good substitute for a word that is necessary to use; in that case, it's okay to use the author's word, as long as you quote it and cite it properly.

You may model your summary on the physical structure of the source, keeping the size of your paragraphs in roughly the same proportion as the paragraphs of the original, or you might want to employ your own organization based on your understanding of the source. A summary is intended to touch on the main points of another writer's work.

Although it's written in your own words, the summary doesn't include your opinions of the source to which you're referring. Since a summary eliminates details that aren't necessary in conveying major points, it is shorter than the original source. Usually, a summary is one-fourth to one-half the length of the original source, whether you're summarizing a paragraph or an entire article.

The problem that everyone faces when attempting to summarize a piece of writing is figuring out what to include and what to leave out. The following are some tips on how to choose material to include in your summary: Cross out the less important details. Underline the topic sentence(s) and key ideas. Take notes on those key ideas. For instance, you could make notes on the information that clarifies the topic sentence.

When you summarize, you might try following these steps: First read the source for understanding--never summarize anything when you read it for the first time. Before you write the summary, check the topic sentence(s) and key words (words that are underlined, italicized, or capitalized) to get a picture of the source's main ideas. Check your summary to make sure that you've been objective. Your opinions are not part of the summary, although you may use the information to prove or disprove your own thesis. Check your summary to make sure that you've properly documented any words or phrases that you've taken from the source.

Questions so far? If so, please ask! The more questions you ask, the more you learn.

I have no clever subheading for paraphrasing. As previously stated, paraphrasing is very similar to summarizing, except that paraphrasing involves restating a source in your own words and that your paraphrase should end up being approximately the same length as the source. It's probably the most challenging of the three methods of incorporating information from sources into your research paper, simply because it requires close attention to detail and word choice--each sentence in a paraphrase corresponds to a sentence in the source.

Paraphrasing is useful when you want to stay as close as possible to the meaning and spirit of a passage but when you want to change the word choice because the language is especially dense and/or potentially confusing to one's audience. The following are tips to help you write paraphrases: As when you're writing a summary, make sure you understand the source material. Look for synonyms (words that carry the same meaning) that you can use when substituting your own words for those found in the source material. Make sure your own writing reads smoothly. Your sentence structures don't have to follow those found in the source material.

If you would like to read more about quoting, paraphrasing, or summarizing, check out an APA or writing style handbook (or ask me)! Once you master these three methods of incorporating information from sources into your research papers, writing such papers will a great deal easier.

Questions? If so, please ask! The more questions you ask, the more you learn.