Using sources when writing an essay often helps make the paper stronger, clearer, or more convincing than an essay based only on your own thoughts. The trick is knowing how to use the material you choose most effectively and how to give proper credit to the author of the source.
Why should I
use source material?
*to provide proof or support for your arguments or ideas
*to define or clarify points or examples
*to provide a point of view or argument different from your own
and to refute opposing ideas
How can I use
source material?
1. Paraphrase: restate source material in your own words
2. Summarize: condense the main points of your source as you restate them in your own words to make the main idea clear but using fewer words.
3. Quote directly: use the exact words of the source material. See Using Quotations.
All of the above methods
must be clearly documented.
Use the citation method appropriate to your
discipline, such as MLA in English or APA in psychology. (See
Citing Sources) Material not
documented in your paper is considered plagiarized.
What is plagiarism and how can I avoid it?
How can I integrate
other material into my writing?
Do not use source
material to repeat ideas you have already stated in your own words.
For example: The Olympian gods valued order and beauty. "The gods of Olympus loved
order and beauty in their sacrifices and their temples" (Hamilton 57). Instead, use the source to back
up or explain what you have already said: The frenzied, bloody
Bacchantes were very different from the Olympian gods who "loved order and beauty in
their sacrifices and their temples" (Hamilton
57).
Use summary and
paraphrase as well as direct quotation in your essay.
Choose quotations carefully to avoid using too
many quotations, especially long ones. Often a few words or a
single sentence is more effective than a long quotation because
shorter phrases allow you to incorporate source material into
your own ideas.
Use verbs such as agree, note, state, suggest, dispute, or refute to introduce summary, paraphrase, and quotation in order to integrate the source material smoothly. For example: Economic collapse appears to be a main factor in the ending of the Cold War, but Haley asserts that "economics are insignifcant next to ideological changes" (203).
Avoid leaving the quotation hanging. Instead, incorporate the quotation into the body of your sentence: Not only did the gods enjoy beauty on Olympus, but also "the deities were exceedingly humanly attractive" on earth (Hamilton 17).
What is citation?
Identifying the source for any idea or words not entirely your
own.
When do I cite?
When you use an idea, significant word, or group of words not
originating from your own thoughts and ideas.
Checklist for kinds of information to cite (from Hodges' Harbrace Handbook, 14th ed., 578-79)
For documentation techniques, see handbooks
in the Writing Center appropriate to your discipline, such as
MLA in English or APA in psychology.
See Citing Sources
Writing in
Sociology by Robert Freymeyer
Writing
Term Papers in History by Richard Heiser
Writing a Review Paper in Biology
by Jane Ellis
Some fine points
of using quotations in MLA style
*Quotations of even two or three words
must be quoted in quotation marks and documented: The monster
Chimaera was said to have breath like the "flame unquenchable" (Hamilton
137).
*Keep punctuation, capitalization, and spelling in the quotation exactly the same as in the source material (or see examples of ellipsis and brackets below for minor changes): Jane Austen's character never thought that she would "quit that humble Cottage for the Deceitfull Pleasures of the World" (Austen 331).
*Avoid many long quotations and do not substitute quotations for your own ideas.
*If the quotation is longer than four lines, begin the quoted section on a new line; indent ten spaces or one inch, doublespace, and do not use quotation marks; include documentation in parentheses at the end of the last quoted line. Put the end punctuation after the last word of the quotation, not after the parentheses. (See the MLA Handbook in the Writing Center for examples.)
When a quotation has to be changed to fit your essay: To omit part of a sentence you are quoting, use ellipsis points, three spaced periods:
Wordsworth's poem "My Heart Leaps Up" may have originated from his sister's journal entry in which she says, "I never saw daffodils so beautiful . . . ever glancing ever changing" ( 324).
To show omitted sentences in a quotation, use an ellipsis:
Abigail Adams wrote her husband, requesting that he "Remember the Ladies, and be more generous and favourable to them. . . . Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the husbands" ( 231).
To change a word in the quotation for clarity or tense, use square brackets [ ]:
"She [Carla] hit the cat." or
Ronnie drops the pickle jar and "green juice [spatters] everywhere."
Examples of paraphrase,
summary, and direct quotation:
The following paragraph is from Edith
Hamilton's Mythology, 1942 ed.:
Original Source: People often speak of "the Greek miracle." What the phrase tries to express is the new birth of the world with the awakening of Greece. 'Old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.' Something like that happened in Greece. Why it happened, or when, we have no idea at all. We know only that in the earliest Greek poets a new point of view dawned, never dreamed of in the world before them, but never to leave the world after them. With the coming forward of Greece, mankind became the center of the universe, the most important thing in it. This was a revolution in thought. Human beings had counted little heretofore. In Greece man first realized what mankind was (Hamilton 14-16).
Paraphrase: No one quite understands what happened when Greece established herself, but clearly the new Greek world had changed in all significant ways from the world that had preceded it. Poets began to see the world and express it differently in their art. Their literary forefathers would not have recognized them, but the new Greeks embodied an approach to life and to art that became fundamental to the development of subsequent ages. Formerly, man as a being had little importance in the world; now, however, the Greeks recognized themselves as a group, as mankind. Far from being peripheral in the universal scheme, man became the center of all things, and this revolutionary approach has been forever credited to the Greeks (Hamilton 14-16).
Summary: People have tried to understand how the Greeks arrived as such a radically new thesis as the importance of man in the universe, for certainly before the rise of the Greek world no one thought of themselves as members of any group called mankind. When or how the Greek phase of history began may not be clear, but certainly the poets of the time express a new concept of art and humanity that remains central to our contemporary world (Hamilton 14-16).
Direct quotation: One of the major contributions of the Greek world is their concept of man's importance, an idea "never dreamed of in the world before them, but never to leave the world after them" (Hamilton 16).
If you are writing a literary essay, avoid unnecessary plot summary.
See Using Quotations for more suggestions.
Make an appointment at the Writing Center in Neville 206 to discuss using sources or any other concern about your paper. Call 7083.
Originally written by Leslie Scherberger, Presbyterian College Writing Center tutor, class of 1998.
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