Working With Sources

Prepared for the fabulous students of ENG 2100Baruch College, Fall 2014Dr. Lisa Blankenship

Portions based on The St. Martin’s Guide to Writing, Rise B. Axelrod & Charles R. Cooper (7th edition), pgs. 747-755

Taking Notes From Your Sources

Make reading notes on your sources [a.k.a. completing an annotated bibliography of some sort]

Take notes? Why can’t I just read the source and highlight what I want to use?

• Helps you when you begin drafting [often you write parts of your paper this way as you go along]

• Helps avoid plagiarism [you’re more likely to plagiarize if you wait til the last minute and simply “grab” quotes from a source to meet requirements for an assignment]

One of the biggest mistakes of beginning researchers:

Not taking notes, not marking up [annotating] sources

or

simply highlighting a source and trying to make sense of what you were thinking later when you’re writing your paper [wastes time!]

Incorporating Sources Into Your Paper

Three ways of incorporating sources into your paper:

1) Summary

2) Paraphrase

3) Direct Quote

How do I know when to use each of these?

Summary:

Summarizing is putting long passages or an entire text into your own words.

It includes the MAIN IDEAS of a source, not details and examples.

Do this when you want to use a source’s argument as a general support for a point you want to make.

How do I know when to use each of these?

Paraphrase:

• Paraphrasing is when you restate in your own words the relevant information in a passage from your source.

• You should paraphrase when you want to include details from a passage but the language of the passage is not striking enough to quote it directly. Also paraphrase to avoid “padding” your paper with too many direct quotes.

• Unlike a summary, a paraphrase will be approximately the same length as the original passage.

• To avoid plagiarism you must change the original source significantly.

• Tip: put your source away and try to write the passage in your own words without looking.

How do I know when to use each of these?

Paraphrase:

Original source:The scene that has inspired the most charges that the film is alarmist is the depiction of what would happen if sea level rose 20 feet, with the World Trade Center Memorial site underwater, and landscapes where millions of people live, from Shanghai to San Francisco, swamped. Audiences might be left with the impression that the deluge is just around the corner, lapping at our feet.

Acceptable paraphrase:As Katherine Mieszkowski points out, one scene from the film that has inspired a great deal of alarm involves a simulation of water from melting glaciers increasing sea level 20 feet and overtaking coastal cities. She writes that audiences could be lead to believe from this that massive flooding could happen in the near future.

How do I know when to use each of these?

Paraphrase:

Original source:The scene that has inspired the most charges that the film is alarmist is the depiction of what would happen if sea level rose 20 feet, with the World Trade Center Memorial site underwater, and landscapes where millions of people live, from Shanghai to San Francisco, swamped. Audiences might be left with the impression that the deluge is just around the corner, lapping at our feet.

Unacceptable paraphrase:The scene from An Inconvenient Truth that has received the biggest criticism is the simulation of what would happen if sea level rose 20 feet, with the World Trade Center Memorial site underwater, and landscapes where millions of people live covered by rising sea levels. Audiences might be left with the impression that this catastrophe is just around the corner.

How do I know when to use each of these?

Direct Quote:

As a general rule, use a direct quote only in the following situations:

1) When the wording is particularly memorable or vivid or expresses a point so well that you cannot improve it without changing the meaning

2) When the words of respected authorities would lend support to your position

3) When you are going to discuss the writer’s particular choice of words.

A good general rule of thumb is the 80/20 principle: no more than 20% of your work should be direct quotes from your sources.

Introducing Sources

Do not use a direct quote without introducing the source. Phrases introducing a direct quote, called “attributive tags” or “signal phrases,” add to your credibility as a writer.

WRONG: “Produced by the industry flacks at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, which is funded in part by Exxon-Mobil, the clip dismisses Gore as a hypocrite, leading a carbon-intensive lifestyle while scolding us plebes that we should strive to reduce our own carbon footprints” (Mieszkowski 5).

RIGHT: With respect to Antarctica, the IPCC reports a consensus entirely at odds with the depiction in Gore's film: "Current global model studies project that the Antarctic ice sheet will remain too cold for widespread surface melting and is expected to gain mass due to increased snowfall" (Robb 4).

Three Ways of Introducing Quotes

1) A complete sentence followed by a colon:With respect to Antarctica, the IPCC reports a consensus entirely at odds with the depiction in Gore's film: "Current global model studies project that the Antarctic ice sheet will remain too cold for widespread surface melting and is expected to gain mass due to increased snowfall" (Robb 4).

2) A signal phrase followed by a comma:According to the IPCC, "Current global model studies project that the Antarctic ice sheet will remain too cold for widespread surface melting and is expected to gain mass due to increased snowfall" (Robb 4).

3) A signal phrase ending in “that” with no comma and no caps on direct quote:Katherine Mieszkowski of Salon.com points out that “nowhere does this oil-industry-funded propaganda mention that Gore used carbon offsets to mitigate the global warming impact of his travel for An Inconvenient Truth.”

How do I know when to cite information?

To avoid plagiarism, you must indicate in your paper when you’re using information from a source.

This includes when you summarize or paraphrase, not just when you use the exact words from a source in a direct quote.

Two ways of acknowledging sources:

1) Referring to the source [author’s name or title of work] in the text of your essay

2) Using an in-text citation

What is an in-text citation?

In-text citations show where the information you’re using comes from.

To cite sources using MLA, include the author’s last name and the page number where the information comes from immediately after the information being cited.

If you use a signal phrase or attributive tag to introduce the quote, include only the page number in parentheses.

What is an in-text citation?

Author not identified in text:With respect to Antarctica, the IPCC reports a consensus entirely at odds

with the depiction in Gore's film: "Current global model studies project that the Antarctic ice sheet will remain too cold for widespread surface melting and is expected to gain mass due to increased snowfall" (Robb 4).

Author identified in text:Robert Robb, an editorial writer for the Arizona Republic, writes that “the

IPCC reports a consensus entirely at odds with the depiction in Gore's film” (4).

Notice the period goes on the OUTSIDE of the parentheses, and the quotation marks go inside.

Assignment:

Work with the popular source for which you did a RefAnnBib today. On your blog, copy and paste your precis/summary and title the new post “Working with sources.”

Remember that a precis/summary should contain the following in this order:

• The main idea/argument of your source• The way the source supports this main idea or argument• The larger implications of this argument

Rewrite your summary and include at least one paraphrase and one direct quote, using MLA citation style. At the end of your new paragraph, include the bibliographic entry for this source in MLA style as it would appear on your Works Cited page.

Finally, explain why you think I’m asking you to do this assignment.