English B1A USING SOURCE MATERIAL

Using Source Material Using source material in your own writing is a good way for you to establish your ethos as an author. Providing evidence in the form of outside sources shows that there are credible, reputable experts who also share your opinion. Their findings lend backing to your argument.

Methods There are multiple ways to include source material in your own writing: Quoting Summarizing Paraphrasing

Quoting You should quote, or include direct words from a source, when the language is especially memorable or beautiful, and to alter it in any way would detract from its power. “[H]e shall never know how I love him: and that, not because he's handsome, Nelly, but because he's more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same” Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights No more than 15% of your paper should be direct quotes, so choose them wisely, and use blocked quotes (quotes that take up more than four lines of text in your paper) sparingly.

How to Quote Whenever you quote from a source, you should remember these three important steps: Introduce Cite Explain The handy acronym ICE can help you remember.

Introducing It should always be clear to your audience who the words in the quotation marks are spoken/written by. Giving credit where credit is due is an important step in preventing plagiarism. Introducing sources also helps make your paper easy to follow for your readers. The very first time you mention a source, you need to give it a complete introduction, including The author’s first and last name The author’s relevant qualifications The full title of the book or article This intro will look similar to the first sentence of a rhetorical précis.

Signal Phrases After your initial introduction of a source, you will use an abbreviated intro called a signal phrase to introduce subsequent quotes from that source. A signal phrase consists of the author’s last name and an appropriate verb: Jones explains Smith argues Rutherford elaborates Your audience should remember who Smith is from your previous introduction and therefore won’t need to have it repeated.

Punctuating Introductions: Colons When introducing a quote with an independent clause, use a colon. Friedman provides a challenging yet optimistic view of the future: “We need to get back to work on our country and on our planet” (25).

Punctuating Introductions: Commas When introducing a quote with a signal phrase, use a comma. Mark Twain once declared, “In the spring, I have encountered one hundred and thirty-six different kinds of weather within four and twenty hours” (55).

Punctuating Introductions: Blending When blending a quotation into your own sentence, no punctuation is needed. Virginia Woolf wrote in 1928 that “a woman must have money and room of her own if she is to write fiction” (4).

Signal Phrases as Endings or Interrupters Your signal phrase might come at the end of the quote rather than the beginning. If so, include the comma inside the quotation marks. “Most scientists concede that they don’t really know what ‘intelligence’ is,” Staples argues (293). If your signal phrase is in the middle of an interrupted quote, use commas to set off the signal phrase. “With regard to air travel,” Ambrose notes, “Jefferson was a full century ahead of the curve” (53).

Abbreviating Quotes If you want to take words out of a quote to make it shorter WITHOUT altering the meaning of the quote, you may do so by adding ellipsis marks. Original Text: “None of these conflicts about self presentation are new to adolescence or to Facebook” (Turkle 600). According to Turkle, “None of these conflicts…are new to adolescence or to Facebook” (600).

Adding to Quotations For clarity’s sake, if you need to add material you can do so by including that material in brackets. Turkle explains, “Tethered selves, they [adolescents] try to conjure a future different from the one they see coming by building on a past they never knew” (604).

Blocked Quotes Blocked quotes are quotes that take up more than 4 lines of your paper. Punctuate these differently than you would a non-blocked quote. They should be indented with no quotation marks, and the period will go before the citation, rather than after. Botan explains, There has never been accurate documentation of the extent of gender differences in surveillance, but by the middle of the 1990s, estimates of the proportion of surveilled employees that were women ranged from 75% to 85%. (127)

Citing In-text citations should be included after every direct quote from a source. In-text citations should include the page number where that quote appears in the source. The period for the sentence should come after the citation. Turkle illustrates that “online communication also offers an opportunity to ignore other people’s feelings” (599).

Citing Exceptions If you have a source that does not have page numbers, then use paragraph numbers instead. If the author’s last name does not appear in your sentence, that will be included in the citation as well. If the author’s last name IS in your sentence, then it DOES NOT need to be in your citation. To our detriment, “we invent ways of being with people that turn them into something close to objects” (Turkle para. 15).

Explaining Source material is included as evidence to support your argument. Rather than letting it “speak for itself,” you should always explain its relevance in terms of your argument. How does it support your thesis? This means that you should never end a paragraph with a citation—you should always include your explanation of the significance of the source within the context of your paper.

Summarizing You may also choose to include to summarize a source in your papers. We have practice a type of summary already in rhetorical précis assignments. Summarizing means condensing the ideas presented in a source. If a source is a paragraph long, your summary would be a sentence or two. Give your audience just the main concepts and leave out details and support.

Summarizing Example A summary should be in your OWN words, not the words of the original text. Original Text: “Buy local, shrink the distance food travels, save the planet. The locavore movement has captured a lot of fans. To their credit, they are highlighting the problems with industrialized food. But a lot of them are making a big mistake. By focusing on transportation, they overlook other energy-hogging factors in food production” (McWilliams 302). Summary: According to McWilliams, people who choose to eat local, seasonal food, often called locavores, are misguided in their singular criticism of shipping of food when there are many other flaws in our food processing (302). Note that the summary is introduced and cited, just like a quote would be. Any ideas that are not your own need to be credited to the author.

Paraphrasing Paraphrasing is like quoting in that you keep all of the ideas from the original text, rather than condensing, like you do when summarizing. Paraphrasing is like summarizing in that you present those ideas entirely in YOUR OWN words rather than in the direct words of the text, like you do when quoting. Paraphrasing is essentially translating; you take the ideas from the original text and translate them into your own language.

Paraphrasing Example Original Text: “In earlier times, surveillance was limited to the information that a supervisor could observe and record firsthand and to primitive counting devic3es. In the computer age surveillance can be instantaneous, unblinking, cheap, and maybe most importantly, easy.” Carl Botan and Mihaela Vorvorenanu, “What Do Employees Think About Electronic Surveillance at Work?” pg. 126 Paraphrase: Scholars Carl Botan and Mihaela Vorvorenanu claim that the nature of workplace surveillance has changed over time. Before the arrival of computers, managers could collect only small amounts of information about their employees based on what they say or heard. However, because computers are not standard workplace technology, employers can monitor employees efficiently (126). Note the introduction and citation.

Plagiarism The most common types of plagiarism I run into are unintentional—students attempt to paraphrase source material, but their wording is too similar to the original text. It’s easy to want to “borrow” some of the language from the original, but that will likely end in plagiarism. Here are some hints for how to paraphrase without plagiarizing.

Synonyms Swap out words for synonyms, or words that have roughly the same meaning as those in the original text. A thesaurus might come in handy here.

Vary Sentence Structure You have to convey all of the ideas from the original text, but they don’t have to be presented in the same order as they were in the original. Vary the structure of the sentences. This will help you ensure that the writing is your own.

Put the Original Away Having the original text staring you in the face can make you feel trapped by it—how else could you possible convey those ideas? Read a small section (a sentence or two) and then put the original away before attempting to paraphrase. This will help you avoid the temptation of “borrowing”.

Check Your Work When you are done, look back over your paraphrase and compare it to the original text. Is it structurally too similar? Are there strings of words that come directly from the original? Remember, using three or more words in a row from the original is considered plagiarism. Yes, that includes words like “a”, “to”, and “the”. No, changing every third words is not acceptable. If you find that you have inadvertently plagiarized, go back and fix your work.

When in Doubt… If you’re ever working on an assignment and wondering, “Did I accidentally plagiarize?” you can always come and ask me about it. Make sure that you bring the original text as well as your work so we can double check. The consultants at the Writing Center are also very adept at helping students correct inadvertent plagiarism. Ultimately, it is better to be safe than sorry—ask rather than facing the penalty!