Citing Sources
Why
How
Quality Sources chomp!
chomp!

Citations Provide
PROOF
• Convince readers that your claims are valid
• Both the amount and the quality of your evidence count.
• And the quality of your evidence will depend on where you got it, how you prepare it, and how you present it.

 buying, stealing, or borrowing a paper
(including, of course, copying an entire paper or article from the
Web);
 hiring someone to write
your paper for you; and copying large sections of
text from a source without quotation marks or proper citation.

 Words or ideas presented in a magazine, book, newspaper, song, TV program, movie, Web page, computer program, letter, advertisement, or any other medium
 Information you gain through interviewing or conversing with another person, face to face, over the phone, or in writing
 When you copy the exact words or a unique phrase
 When you reprint any diagrams, illustrations, charts, pictures, or other visual materials
 When you reuse or repost any electronically-available media, including images, audio, video, or other media

 Writing your own lived experiences, your own observations and insights, your own thoughts, and your own conclusions about a subject
 When you are writing up your own results obtained through lab or field experiments
 When you use your own artwork, digital photographs, video, audio, etc.
 When you are using "common knowledge," things like folklore, common sense observations, myths, urban legends, and historical events (but not historical documents)
 When you are using generally-accepted facts, e.g., pollution is bad for the environment, including facts that are accepted within particular discourse communities, e.g., in the field of composition studies, "writing is a process" is a generally-accepted fact.

In the body of the paper, it looks like this:
When Mercutio is wounded, he screams “A plague on both your houses!” referring to both the Capulets and the Montagues
(Shakespeare 70).
Works Cited
Shakespeare, William. Romeo and Juliet . New York: Scholastic, Inc., 1969. Print.

 Period goes AFTER the quote
Citation: use 1 st thing in the Works Cited page (usually author’s last name or article title)

When in-text citing this source, put
(Halio)
Halio, Jay L., "Elizabethan Age." Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia . Scholastic
When in-text citing this
Library Publishing, 2006. HF-L High School. 1 Apr 2006. Web.
<http://gme.grolier.com>.
Life”)
When in-text
“ Home Life ” Life in Elizabethan England source, put
. Summer 2005. 31 Mar 2006. Web.
<http://renaissance.dm.net/compendium>.
(Pressley) When in-text
Pressley, J. M. "An Encapsulated Biography." Shakespeare Resource Center ,
When in-text source, put
February 10, 2005. 3 Mar 2006 < http://www.bardweb.net/man.html
>.
citing this
Shakespeare, William. Romeo and Juliet. New York: Scholastic, Inc., 1969. Print.
(Thomas)
Thomas, Heather. The Life in Times of Queen Elizabeth I. 23 Mar 2006. 1 Apr
2006 . Web. <www.elizabethi.org>.

 Use www.easybib.com
 Make sure ALL information is correct
 Works Cited goes on its OWN PAGE, inside your document (last page)
• Do NOT trust Microsoft! It uses MLA 2007

A. On September 11, 2001, the World Trade
Center and the Pentagon were attacked by hijacked airplanes.
B. Atta, Binalshibh, al Shehhi, and Jarrah had lived in Germany and were chosen over more established Al Qaeda members due to their exposure to the West and ability to speak
English.

: it is specific and not commonly known
 How would you cite it? In the text of your paper:
 “Atta, Binalshibh, al Shehhi, and Jarrah had lived in
Germany and were chosen over more established Al
Qaeda members due to their exposure to the West and ability to speak English” (“National Commission…” 160).
In the Works Cited:
“National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the
United States.” The 9/11 Commission Report. New York:
W.W. Norton, 2004.

A. The science labs at East St. Louis High
School are 30 to 50 years outdated.
B. When public schools were segregated, conditions were not equal.

How would you cite it? In-body:
 “The science labs at East St. Louis High School are 30 to 50 years outdated” (Kozol 27).
 Many believe updates are necessary because “the science labs at East St. Louis High School are 30 to 50 years outdated” (Kozol 27).
In the Works Cited:
Kozol, Jonathan. Savage Inequalities: Children in
America’s Schools . New York: HarperCollins,
1991. Print.

 Quotations
• identical to the original
• using a narrow segment of the source.
• Must match the source document word for word
• must be attributed to the original author.
• Direct quotation.
Finally, determining which frog had committed the atrocity she shouted,
“Off with his head!” (Burton 26:52).
MLA style citation

 When you need to analyze the language of the text in your writing
 When you want to incorporate highly technical information into your text
 When you want to show different sides of the argument in the debater’s own words
Think of quotes like jewels in a crown: there is such a thing as
“over-doing it”
(re: this tiara!)
–so use quotes sparingly. IN fact, papers should be no more than
25% quotes!
 When a great passage needs to speak for itself.

 Putting a passage from source material into your own words.
 Must also be attributed to the original source.
 Usually shorter than the original passage, taking a somewhat broader segment of the source (1 paragraph, etc) and condensing it slightly.
• Paraphrase.
In Chapter 11 of Into the Wild, Walt,
McCandless’s father, remembers an early hike with twelve-year-old Chris. They made it to 13,000 feet before turning back from the 14,256-foot summit in
Colorado. Chris did not want to quit, and complained all the way down (Krakauer 109).
MLA style citation

 the quotation is long and wordy
 the words in the quotation are not powerful
 the source of the quotation is unknown or dubious
 you are capable of making a good paraphrase without making it seem like plagiarism.
Paraphrasing is restating the ideas & details, without using the author’s exact wording or sentence structure.

 Carefully read the original quotation and make sure to understand its central theme.
 Note down anything that grabs your attention. If you feel that some element (word, phrase, thought) contributes to the central theme of the quotation, make a note of it.
 Write a paraphrase in your own words.
Meticulously avoid using the original words, phrases, and expression. At the same time, make sure that your words convey the same central theme.
 If you need to use an interesting word or phrase from the original text, use quotation marks to indicate that it is not your own.
 Cite the source
It’s not just using a thesaurus to replace words.

 putting the main idea(s) of a larger work into your own words
 including only the main point(s).
 Summaries are significantly shorter than the original
 Take a broad overview of the source material.
Summary.
In Into the Wild, Krakauer seems to be working out his own past and his relationship with his father as well as telling the sad story of
Chris McCandless. Because Krakauer, too, is a man of the outdoors, he understands something about the call of the wild.

 Your quote can’t make your point for you.
YOU must make your point.
 Use a quote, tell the reader
WHAT it shows and why.

 Introduce your quote/paraphrase


Read & highlight the handout
Use your quote
Explain your quote
“It’s not easy being green” (Sesame Street 123).
Analyze your quote/: Relate it to your point
Here Kermit is referring to the prejudice our society has against green creatures.
Sadly, Kermit isn’t always the happy frog he appears to be on TV.
Now create your own
Quote sandwich using your own research

 Make your own Quote Sandwich!
 Using this quote my Helen Smith on page
2 of her article, write a short response:
 “Creativity put to work can change a problem and turn it into a gold mine.”
 First introduce the person and quote, give the quote, cite it correctly, and explain the quote!

 Your Quote Sandwich should look something like this:
 According to the author, “Creativity put to work can change a problem and turn it into a gold mine” (Smith 2). This showed me that I can make anything happen.
 According to Helen Smith, “Creativity put to work can change a problem and turn it into a gold mine” (2). This shows that if we keep an open mind when we’re faced with a problem, we can make a difference.

 Do NOT use wikipedia general info, but should as a cited source.
• It changes frequently – can change daily!
page as your jumping off
 Sources that end in .edu
point or .gov are more reliable. They are usually the
“primary” source –the
 Analysis required:News group doing the research/surveys. They are edited by
 agencies often end in .com
professionals, they are assessed, and have
Beware of .org, .com, and .net websites.
• Sometimes can be used to show people’s opinions.
.net= Network (anyone
Should NOT be used for facts unless newspapers will have reputable source such as news site. these, so think about your .com carefully

Is your web source
 Credible
 Accurate
 Reliable
 Supported
 See handout, analyze 1 source YOU used.
 Sometimes you may use a non-credible source, if you are quoting an opinion and state it as such in your paper.