Incorporating Sources: Quoting, Paraphrasing, Summarizing, Citing

Incorporating Sources

Quoting

Paraphrasing

Summarizing

Quoting

Repeating EXACTLY what another author or speaker wrote or said

Paraphrasing

Putting a short passage from another author or speaker into your own style

Paraphrasing should not alter the ideas of the original author or speaker

Paraphrasing can be shorter or longer than the original passage

Summarizing

Takes a long passage or whole document written by someone else and reduces it to main points in your own style

Shorter than the original Should not alter the ideas of the original

When Should You Quote?

• The style of the original is impressive

• The author has credibility that will impress your reader

• You are going to analyze the wording of the original to make one of your points

Avoid Plagiarism

All use of sources must be CITED in either style

MLA format uses parenthetical citation (not footnotes or endnotes)

MLA

Author-page number style Parenthetical citations include author last

name and page number (Williams 64) when available.

If author name is not available, whatever information is first on the Works Cited page is used in parentheses.

“Signal phrases” almost always used

MLA Block Quotation

4 lines of text or more Indent 2 tabs Lead in with a colon (:) No quotation marks Parenthetical citation goes after final

period

Quotation and Citation: MLA

In MLA, whether you quote, paraphrase or summarize, the citation goes in parentheses at the end of the sentence that ends your use of the source.

Put the NAME of the author, if it is available, a space, and the page number, if it is available, in the parenthesis with NO other punctuation. Put the final period outside the last quotation mark. (Brown 14).

Paraphrasing

Paraphrasing might best be described as translating a passage into a new style.

All evidence of the original style, including sentence structure and word choices that reveal the original author’s personal style, should be changed.

Paraphrasing Redux

Original: “Teenagers are hurt by raising the minimum wage in two ways.”

Bad paraphrase: “Teens are wounded by increasing the minimum wage in two fashions.”

Why doesn’t it work? Only a few words were changed. The original sentence structure is still visible.

Paraphasing Redux Cont.

Original: “Teenagers are hurt by raising the minimum wage in two ways.”

Paraphrase: For two reasons, increasing the minimum wage negatively affects workers age 16-19.

Paraphrasing Redux—Cont.

Q: Why is it okay to repeat the phrase “minimum wage”?

A: No one researching or writing about the issue can avoid using “minimum wage,” so its use is not “stealing” someone’s style.

Paraphrasing Step By Step

Select a passage to paraphrase. Read the passage until you feel like you understand

it completely. Set aside the book, try to put the passage into your

own organization and words. It may help to imagine an audience of a young child or elderly relative, because they will require a different vocabulary from most sources.

You may include words for which there is no good synonym.

Check your paraphrase against the original; it should be ACCURATE and IN YOUR OWN WORDS.

Poor Paraphrase

Original: The worry on Wall Street is that the housing market is getting so weak it will crimp consumer spending, which until now has helped keep the economy afloat.

Paraphrase: The concern on Wall Street is that the housing market is getting so pathetic that it will reduce consumer spending, which up until now has kept the economy from failing (Dixon 14).

Good Paraphrase

Original: The worry on Wall Street is that the housing market is getting so weak it will crimp consumer spending, which until now has helped keep the economy afloat.

Economists are concerned that consumer spending that is now keeping our national economy alive will soon be affected by the troubles in the housing market (Dixon 14).

Paraphrasing Practice

Married women who made $40,000 or more a year spent nearly one hour less on housework per day than women who earned $10,000 or less, according to the findings based on data from the National Survey of Families and Households.

Summary

Unlike paraphrase, summary does not go line-by-line to report on all the ideas from an original.

Summary is a boiling down. Summary still requires citation.

Summary Guidelines

Make sure you are accurate to the original. It is unethical to report that someone said something they didn’t.

Make sure the main points are in your own words and avoid accidental plagiarism.

Cite!

What about Turnitin.com?

Your instructor can set turnitin to ignore everything in quotation or block quotes, so that that does not show up in an originality report.

Jargon and keywords should be ignored unless there is another, equally clear way of saying the same thing.

Significant phrase matches between your language and one of your sources may require revision.