Academic advice 6: Punctuation - Calvary University

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Citing Sources

Basic Tips for Students: Give reference to ideas and information in a Bibliography

Any time you draw ideas or information from outside your own experience you need to cite.

What do I need to document?

Any idea, conclusion, information, words, or data directly derived from someone else
Paraphrases and summaries

What don't I need to document?

General knowledge
Common sayings
Self-evident opinions or conclusions
Information found in several sources (at least three)

How can I best bring outside sources into my paper?

The most common ways to incorporate sources into your researched prose include summarizing, paraphrasing, and quoting directly.

Why should you think about the ways you quote? Because you are trying to keep your reader awake. Restrain yourself when you feel the urge to quote forever. Try summarizing or paraphrasing instead. Or better yet: Attempt to use a variety of methods throughout your paper to keep reader interest as long as possible. To quote an old maxim, "Variety is the spice of life."

Quoting, Paraphrasing, and Summarizing

What are the differences among quoting, paraphrasing, and summarizing?

These three ways of incorporating other writers' work into your own writing differ according to the closeness of your writing to the source writing. Obviously, a quotation must be identical to the original, using a narrow segment of the source. Paraphrased material is usually shorter than the original passage, taking a somewhat broader segment of the source and condensing it slightly. Summaries are significantly shorter than the original and take a broad overview of the source material.
Quotations must match the source document word for word and must be attributed to the original author. Paraphrasing involves putting a passage from source material into your own words. A paraphrase must also be attributed to the original source. Summarizing involves putting the main idea(s) into your own words, including only the main point(s). Once again, it is necessary to attribute summarized ideas to the original source.

Why use quotations, paraphrases, and summaries?

Quotations, paraphrases, and summaries serve many purposes. You might use them to:

provide support for claims or add credibility to your writing
refer to work that leads up to the work you are now doing
give examples of several points of view on a subject
call attention to a position that you wish to agree or disagree with
highlight a particularly striking phrase, sentence, or passage by quoting the original
distance yourself from the original by quoting it in order to cue readers that the words are not your own
expand the breadth or depth of your writing

Writers frequently intertwine summaries, paraphrases, and quotations. As part of a summary of an article, a chapter, or a book, a writer might include paraphrases of various key points blended with quotations of striking or suggestive phrases as in the following example:

In his famous and influential work On the Interpretation of Dreams, Sigmund Freud argues that dreams are the "royal road to the unconscious" (page), expressing in coded imagery the dreamer's unfulfilled wishes through a process known as the "dream work" (page). According to Freud, actual but unacceptable desires are censored internally and subjected to coding through layers of condensation and displacement before emerging in a kind of rebus puzzle in the dream itself (pages).

Adapted from: Online Writing Lab by
the Purdue University Writing Lab,
School of Liberal Arts: http://owl.english.purdue.edu.