Attribution Tags
When writing research papers (or any paper using outside resources), it is VERY important to use attribution
tags with your quotes. You NEVER want to have a single quote by itself in a sentence.
WHAT THE HECK ARE ATTRIBUTION TAGS????
You know how tags on your shirt tell you how it should be washed? Well, an attribution tag tells your reader
why he/she needs to take your research seriously. These tags must include a name and that person’s profession
or how he/she is important to that field of study. You only need an attribution tag the FIRST TIME you
introduce a source. After that, you still need relevant citation information, but the attribution tag clears your
author from any suspicion.
Here’s an example:
He announced, "The French people have conferred a mandate on me. I will scrupulously fulfill it" (“Sarkozy
Sworn in as President of France”).
The pronoun “he” is not enough. Who is HE? In this case it would be France’s president, Nicolas Sarkozy. For
a proper attribution tag, it would be best to write:
French president Nicolas Sarkozy announced, “The French people have conferred a mandate on me. I will
scrupulously fulfill it” (“Sarkozy Sworn in as President of France”).
This was easy, though. Sometimes, you may do research, but you really don’t know who the author of your
quote is!
Denis Burges explained, “Understanding the basics of morphemic clusters and syntax ladders are extremely
important to understanding language” (81).
First of all, who the heck is Denis Burges? Without an attribution tag, Denis Burges can be a squash farmer for
all we know. But if you add an attribution tag, this suspicious sentence turns out to be legitimate, and you won’t
get points taken off your paper!
Dr. Denis Burges, professor of linguistics at Stanford University, explained, “Understanding the basics of
morphemic clusters and syntax ladders are extremely important to understanding language” (82).
If you do not know the title/profession of your author, in the context of your understanding of the author’s
work, you can EXPLAIN who the person is.
Arnold Saga, a graduate student who did extensive research on HIV, emphasizes that “ insert quote” (page).
Debbi Kahill, author of several books on the subject of Kyrgyzstan politics stresses, “insert quote” (page).
Don’t passively read through texts and plop down authors’ names. Look them up. Can you find any information
about them at all? What does it say in the “About the Author” section? If someone wrote a book, they have got
to have some sort of influence in that field. Find it, note it, and attribute it to your quote!
If you don’t introduce your quote/create an attribution tag, your quote is meaningless. You need to tie
your quotation in to your paper AND you need to give credibility to your source!
TCTC Writing Center
Prepared by Jennifer Higgins-Spiers, July 2007