Using Sources

Created Feb. 7, 2024 by CeAnn Myers

Using Sources

BY CeAnn Myers

Most Writing Requires Outside Sources

As you progress through your education, teachers and other students expect your writing to become more and more academic. You will be expected to do research and learn about different topics and explain your reactions to the information. It is not enough just to have an opinion, you must support it with research and data. How can you do this? This text will explain how to approach a writing assignment that requires research, how to cite the research, and will give some tips to help you write.

Defining Plagiarism

What Is Plagiarism?

  • Plagiarism occurs when you present another person’s ideas, intentionally or as an accident, as your own.
  • This could be the entire paper or even just once sentence.
  • It is considered stealing and/or cheating.
  • It is your responsibility as the student to avoid plagiarizing.
  • As a scholar, you are expected to credit the sources of ideas that you use in your own work.

What Counts as Plagiarism?

Plagiarism can be intentional or an accident. It often occurs because the process of citation can be confusing, technology makes copy + paste so easy, and knowing exactly what to cite is not always easy! You can avoid accidental plagiarism by learning how to cite material and keeping track of sources in your notes. Here are some examples of plagiarism:

  • Submitting a paper written by someone else.
  • Using words and phrases from the source text and putting them together in new sentences.
  • Failing to say the sources of words or information.
  • Not providing quotation marks around a direct quotation. This leads to the false idea that the words are your own.
  • Borrowing the idea or opinion of someone else without giving the person credit.
  • Restating or paraphrasing a passage without citing the original author.
  • Borrowing facts or statistics that are not common knowledge without proper acknowledgement.

Why You Should Care

Being honest and maintaining integrity in your academic work is a sign of character and professionalism. In addition to maximizing your own learning and taking ownership of your academic success, not plagiarizing is important because

  • your professors assign research projects to help you learn. You cheat yourself when you substitute someone else’s work for your own.
  • you don’t like it when someone else takes credit for your ideas, so don’t do it to someone else.
  • plagiarizing comes with consequences. Depending on the offense and the institution, you may be asked to rewrite plagiarized work, receive a failing grade on the assignment, fail the entire course, or be suspended from the school.
  • professors use search engines, databases, and specialized software to check suspicious work, so you will get caught.

How to Avoid Plagiarizing

Avoiding plagiarism begins with properly managing your research. If you are rushed, don’t take good notes, or lose track of where you found your sources, you may find yourself accidentally plagiarizing. Here are some tips to prevent that from happening:

  • Start your research early.
  • Take and keep accurate notes of the sources you use. Distinguish between your ideas and other’s ideas and direct quotes.
  • Keep track of your sources. As you gather sources during your research, make sure to record all the information you need to cite your sources accurately and completely (e.g., authors, titles, URL addresses, etc.). Check with your instructor or a librarian to see what citation information is required for the citation style you will be using (e.g., APA, MLA, Chicago).
  • If you have questions about how to cite your sources, ask your teacher.

More Tips for Avoiding Plagiarism

  • Make sure to place direct quotes from another person in quotation marks. This is especially important to remember when you are taking notes from any source you use. Make sure to copy the words exactly as they appear in the source.
  • When you paraphrase, be sure you are not just changing or rearranging a few words. Carefully read over the text you want to paraphrase. Write out the idea in your own words. Check your paraphrase against the original text to make sure you have not accidentally used the same phrases or words.
  • Make sure to include complete and correct citations in your works cited list.
  • Make sure to follow the guidelines and rules for the citation style specified by your instructor (e.g., APA, MLA, Chicago).
  • In the beginning of the first sentence containing a quote or paraphrase of another’s work, make it clear that it is someone else’s idea (e.g., According to Smith . . . )

Introduction to College Composition: Research: Writing Ethically by Lumen Learning is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.

Defining Plagiarism in Global Community

Using other peoples’ ideas is cultural so different cultures have different rules about plagiarism. While some cultures think that it is okay to use other’s ideas, this is not okay in most western cultures, including the United States. Because you are going to school in the United States, it is very important that you follow their rules so you don’t have problems. These may be very different from your home culture, so please be very careful not to plagiarise.  

Using Sources Ethically

How can I incorporate research into my paper?

There are many ways to show your research. Often, your research will be included as a quotation, paraphrase, or summary. Sometimes you might include graphs, charts, tables, or photographs.  The three most common ways to add research into your English paper are to quote or paraphrase.

Introduction to College Composition: Research: Finding Sources by Lumen Learning is licensed under CC BY 4.0.

Quotations

When you quote, you are copy and pasting another writer’s words exactly as they appear on the page and use quotation marks “...”. Here are some tips to help you decide when to use quotations:

  1. Quote if the author said it so well that you can’t imagine changing it.
  2. Quote if the author’s words are very helpful to support your argument.

Make sure that you introduce your quote by explaining who said it and why people should trust them.  After the quote, you should explain why this is relevant to your paper.

Paraphrasing

Paraphrasing means to keep the author’s idea, but change their words and their grammar.  Only keep words that are impossible to change (e.g., the name of a country). If you use more than three of the author’s words, you need to change more or use a quote. Make sure that you introduce your source (just like a quote), but do not use quotation marks.  After, explain why this is relevant to your paper.

When should you paraphrase?

  1. Paraphrase when you want to share their idea, but you don’t need to use their exact words.
  2. Paraphrase when you want to explain the author’s ideas, but you want to make them shorter or in a different order.

Taking Notes and Keeping an Annotated Bibliography

It is impossible to remember everything. This is also true with your research. For many papers, you will have to look at many different sources before you choose the best one(s) to use. With all of these sources, you may forget where you found your information and this can lead to accidental plagiarism. What can you do? Take notes!

  1. Title and Link: Every time you look at a source, either copy and paste the title/link or write them down.
  2. Brief Description: write one or two sentences summarising the source.
  3. Possible Quotes or Sentences to Paraphrase: if you use the computer, copy and paste sentences that you think would support your writing (don’t forget to include the page number!)

This way, you will not forget your sources and it will make quoting and paraphrasing correctly much easier!

Citation Resources

There are many fantastic resources out there that can make the formatting and citation process easier. Some common style guides are found at:

  1. The Purdue Online Writing Lab: this is a popular resource that concisely explains how to properly format and cite in various academic styles.
  2. EasyBib: in addition to having a style guide, this website allows you to paste in information from your research and will create and save citations for you.

Reference management websites and applications can also assist you in tracking and recording your research. Most of these websites will even create the works cited page for you! Some of the most popular citation tools are:

Introduction to College Composition: Research: MLA Documentation by Lumen Learning is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

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