This information is offered to help Kamiak students experience success in writing in high school and beyond. When writing for an academic purpose it is important to understand, use and give credit for a variety of information.
Checklist for Citations
- I have effectively and responsibly quoted, paraphrased, and summarized.
- My documentation is correctly formatted.
- I have used a balanced and adequate number of relevant resources.
- I have not plagiarized any of the material in this project.
Document Sources: When and Why
Use in-text documentation to cite a source whenever you:
- use an original idea from one of your sources, whether you quote or paraphrase it
- summarize original ideas from one of your sources
- use factual information that is not common knowledge (Common knowledge is information that recurs in many sources. If you are not certain it is common knowledge, cite to be safe.)
- quote directly from a source
- use a date, fact, or statistic that might be disputed
Usually only the author's last name and the page number OR, in the absence of an author, the title and the page number are given. Do not use the word “page” or any abbreviations. Page numbers may be omitted if the article is a one-page article or one in an encyclopedia arranged alphabetically. Page numbers may also be omitted when citing Web resources, which do not normally include paging.
The purpose of this format is to give immediate source information without interrupting the flow of the paper. Usually parenthetical citations are placed at the end of a sentence, but they may be placed in the middle (see example 6). The academic world takes in-text documentation seriously. Inaccurate documentation is as serious as having no documentation at all.
Rules for using in-text documentation
- Use the author's last name and give the page number in parentheses. Do not use “page” or abbreviations for page, just write the number. In most cases you will be citing one or two pages, leading your reader to a specific piece of information. Allow one space before the parentheses but none after it if a period follows.
EX: Arthur Miller’s The Crucible “forces a revolution in our perception and definition of reality” (Martin 73).
- If you are using more than one book by the same author, give the last name, comma, the title, and the page.
EX: Animal imagery conveys the primitive, uncontrolled rage that the peasants feel. One person “acquired a tigerish smear about the mouth” (Dickens, Tale of Two Cities 33-34).
- There is a relationship between your writing and how you compose your in-text documentation. If you identify the author and title in the text, you do not need to repeat that information. Simply present the page number in your citation.
EX: In Understanding Why the Caged Bird Sings, Megna-Wallace notes that Angelou’s autobiography succeeds on two levels: “first, as a personal memoir . . . and second, as a representative narrative that exemplifies the struggle of many African American women against racial and sexual oppression” (10).
- If there is no author, give the title and the page number.
EX: A number of critics feel that Hemingway’s journalistic style continued to influence writers through the end of the 20th century (“Hemingway Chronicle” 5).
- If you are quoting a direct quotation from a secondary source, you must identify it as such.
EX: According to Arthur Miller, “It was not only McCarthyism that moved me, it was as though the whole country had been born anew, without a memory even of certain elemental decencies” (qtd. in Budick 74).
- If a quotation or information appears in the middle of your own idea, then insert the documentation immediately after the quotation.
EX: Arthur’s Miller’s notion of a country “without memory of certain elemental decencies” (qtd. in Budick 74) resonates throughout The Crucible.
- If the quoted material exceeds two lines in your text, use a comma or colon after the last word of text, indent and type the quotation without quotation marks. The parenthetical citation follows the punctuation at the end of the last sentence of the quote.
- Web documents generally do not have fixed page numbers or any kind of section numbering. If your source lacks numbering, omit numbers from your in-text documentation and use only the main entry—author, or title, if there is no author—in parenthesis.
Note: For a Web document, the page numbers of a printout should NOT be cited, because the pagination may vary in different printouts.
EX: A recent CNN.com review noted that the book's purpose was “to teach cultures that are both different from and similar to world status quo” (Allen).
Summarizing, Paraphrasing, and Quoting
You can borrow from the works of other writers as you research. Good writers use three strategies—summarizing, paraphrasing, and quoting—to blend source materials in with their own, while making sure their own voice is heard.
Summarizing
Summarizing involves putting the main idea(s) of one or several writers into your own words, including only the main point(s). Once again, it is necessary to attribute summarized ideas to the original source.
Summarized ideas are not necessarily presented in the same order as in the original source. Summaries are significantly shorter than the original and take a broad overview of the source material.
Summarize when:
- You want to establish background or offer an overview of a topic
- You want to describe common knowledge (from several sources) about a topic
- You want to determine the main ideas of a single source
Paraphrasing
Paraphrasing means rephrasing the words of an author, putting his/her thoughts in your own words. A paraphrase can be viewed as a “translation” of the original source. When you paraphrase, you rework the source’s ideas, words, phrases, and sentence structures with your own. Paraphrased text is often, but not always, slightly shorter than the original work. Like quotations, paraphrased material must be followed with in-text documentation and cited on the Works Cited page.
Paraphrase when:
- You plan to use information on your note cards and wish to avoid plagiarizing
- You want to avoid overusing quotations
- You want to use your own voice to present information
Quotations are the exact words of an author, copied directly from the source word for word. Quotations must be cited!
Use quotations when:
- You want to add the power of an author’s words to support your argument
- You want to disagree with an author’s argument
- You want to highlight particularly eloquent or powerful phrases or passages
- You are comparing and contrasting specific points of view
- You want to note the important research that precedes your own
SOURCE: Developed with Carol H. Rohrbach, K–12 Language Arts Coordinator, School District of Springfield Township, Erdenheim, PA.
Weaving Quotes into Your Writing
Effective writers use a variety of techniques to integrate quotations into their text.
When you use a quote in your writing, consider:
- What am I trying to say?
- Can a passage from the text say it for me?
- Have I explained the value of the quote?
Avoid “overquoting.” It is important that your own voice is heard!
Discuss the effectiveness of the following writing samples:
Serious room for improvement:
William Golding’s book Lord of the Flies is about kids stranded on an island. Some of the kids are good and some are bad. “Roger, with a sense of delirious abandonment, leaned all his weight on the lever” (Golding 180). So I ask you, what causes irresponsible behavior? Ralph is good, but Jack is bad.
Room for improvement:
There are bad kids on the island. One of them is Roger. He drops a boulder on Piggy and kills him. “Roger, with a sense of delirious abandonment, leaned all his weight on the lever” (Golding 180). This caused Piggy’s death.
A possible revision:
The truest form of wickedness on the island is evident in Roger. He demonstrates his true depravity when, “with a sense of delirious abandonment, [he] leaned all his weight on the lever” (Golding 180). Well aware of Piggy’s place beneath him, Roger willingly takes Piggy’s life.
Another possible revision:
Roger’s murder of Piggy clearly illustrates the depths children can sink to without appropriate supervision. As he stood high above Piggy on the mountain, “Roger, with a sense of delirious abandonment, leaned all his weight on the lever” (Golding 180). His willingness to welcome the moment with “delirious abandonment” clearly demonstrates the level of pleasure that Roger received by committing this horrific act.
Additional settings for Safari Browser.
