The Research Paper

Introduction | Idea | Overview |  Refinement | Evaluation | Group Project 
Thesis | Citing | Persuasion Essay
 Literature Review Essay |   Process Essay 

Citing

What is citing?

I cite when I use someone else’s words or ideas to support my own point of view and give that person credit by stating, in parentheses in the text of my paper, what source the words or idea came from and exactly where in that source (by page number) my reader can go to find it.

I cite to provide  a MINI-MAP showing my reader exactly where to go to find the words or idea that I’ve taken from someone else and written into my paper.

Here is an example of a parenthetical reference:

(Dodes 69)
Dodes identifies my source by naming its author, while 69 identifies the page in Dodes’s book from which I took his idea for use in my paper.

Just as the map below locates Wye Mills within the U.S., my parenthetical reference (Dodes 69) guides a reader looking for Dodes’s idea (that I’ve used in my paper) to his book and to its specific page where his idea can be found.

If I don’t cite, I’ve committed plagiarism.

Plagiarism is the "taking and using as one's own ideas the ideas and writings of another" (Webster's 522). Plagiarism is a serious offense and you need to understand it fully.

Here is a short quiz to assess your knowledge of what needs to be cited in a research project.  Read the scenario and click on the box with the appropriate answer.

Now for a little review...

Using the Ideas of Others

I begin the rough draft of my research paper. I need to use information I’ve found in the sources on my Working Bibliography to support my own views as expressed in my Persuasive Essay.

Working Bibliography	+	Persuasive Essay	=	Rough Draft

I can incorporate SOMEONE ELSE'S IDEA in my paper in one of three ways:

• By SUMMARIZING -- stating the essence of someone else's idea in just a few words. I must give credit to the author.
• By PARAPHRASING -- stating the entire idea in my own words. I must give credit to the author.
• By QUOTING -- using the author’s exact wording.  I must copy word-for-word, enclose within quotation marks and give credit to the author.

In his book The Heart of Addiction, on page 69, author Lance Dodes writes:

Many people take for granted that addiction is a physical problem. The very words used to describe addictions – that one is “hooked on” drugs, or even the less colloquial version of this, that one is “addicted to” drugs – suggest that drugs somehow physically capture people. Adding to the impression are movies and television shows almost everyone has seen in which people are shown in physical agony withdrawing from narcotics, or feeling desperate to get a “fix of their drug to prevent withdrawal effects.

I want to use Dodes’s ideas, expressed in the above passage, to support an argument that I make in my paper :

Visit these pages from the University of Wisconsin to learn more about summarizing, paraphrasing and quoting. Then... Take the following brief quiz.  Click on finished when you have completed the questions and get your score. Summarizing, Paraphrasing, Quoting

Forms of parenthetical references

(Dodes 69) is the only form of a parenthetical reference I’ve used so far.

Another way to cite is to use the author’s name in the text of my paper. Then, only the page number goes in the parenthesis:

But what if a source doesn’t have an author? And lots of sources, like websites, don’t have page numbers!

There are lots of rules governing parenthetical references, but IS AVAILABLE! Click for help with MLA parenthetical references. (Click for help with APA parenthetical references; click  for help with an APA List of References.)

Citing the Bible or using a one page article from a periodical? Citing a source with no author or 4 authors? Citing a source with no page numbers or 7 volumes? It’s all here! Bookmark it or print it out – you’ll need to refer to it many times as you work on your rough draft.

NoodleBib6 will also provide help with formatting parenthetical references.

Works Cited page

When I finish my draft, I find I’ve cited words or ideas from 8 of the 17 sources on my Working Bibliography. The parenthetical documentation in the text of my paper identifies those 8 BRIEFLY, now its time to provide FULL information on the sources: author, title, publisher, date, etc. on a Works Cited page.

I used Noodlebib6 to create my Working Bibliography in the Overview and Refinement sections of this tutorial.  I can use it again to create my Works Cited Page (s) by editing the Working Bibliography and deleting the entries for the 9 sources I did not cite in my paper; or, I can copy/paste from my Working Bibliography the entries for the 8 sources I cited in my paper.

When I turn in my paper I have to include both the Works Cited Page (s) and the Working Bibliography.

In summary:

• I use Parenthetical References to briefly identify the source and the place in the source whenever I paraphrase, summarize or quote from any of the sources on my Working Bibliography.
   
• I list a source on my Works Cited Page (s) whenever I cite it parenthetically in the text of my paper.

FINAL CITING QUIZ