WHY SHOULD I CITE?

• To build a foundation for your paper. Great breakthroughs in scholarship are accomplished by building on the earlier, groundbreaking work of others. For example, Isaac Newton’s law of universal gravitation would not have been possible without Johannes Kepler’s law of planetary motion. What articles, books, and texts, inspired you to create your argument? You are not the first person to ever consider this issue. You want to provide references to the works which led to your thesis.

• To allow your readers to find the sources for themselves. Someone interested in your topic may be inspired to read some of the sources you used to write your paper. The citation within the paper tells readers what part of your argument is addressed by a particular source, and the full citation in the bibliography provides the information needed to track down that original research.

What Should I Cite?

The easy answer is that all information that you get from a source needs to be cited. But, the real answer is a bit more complex.  You do need  to cite anytime you:

• Copy verbatim (word for word) from a source.  This is known as a direct quote, and is discussed in more detail later in this chapter.
• Use some of the exact phrases in a sentence or paragraph, even if you are not copying the whole sentence or paragraph.
• Use original information that you have obtained from an interview or conversation with someone.
• Include information you learned from a source that you did not know before, even if you put it in your own words.
• Do not use the exact sentence or phrase but paraphrase it, or use the ideas inherent in the exact sentence or phrase, you must cite your source. (Paraphrasing will be discussed in more detail later in this chapter.)
• Offer an overview of information that you learned from a source that you did not know before. (This will be discussed in more detail in the “Summarizing” section later in this chapter).
• Share ideas that you got from a source, that you did not know before.
• Reprint images, maps, diagrams, charts, or tables from a source.
• Incorporate into your essay a distinct or specific phrase or wording of a concept that you got from a source.

However, as you do research, you will undoubtedly come across information that you already know, or information that you find repeated in multiple sources.  Whether to cite this information or not becomes a bit trickier, as you need to decide it if is common knowledge or not.

What is common knowledge?

Common knowledge is information that is accepted and known so widely you do not need to cite it:

• Common sayings or cliches. Examples: Curiosity killed the cat.  Ignorance is bliss.
• Facts that can be easily verified. As you are conducting your research on a topic, you will see the same facts repeated over and over.  Example: You are writing a paper on presidential elections, and you want to mention that Ronald Reagan was elected in 1980.  Although you might not have known this fact before your research, you have seen it multiple times and no one ever argues about it.
• Facts that you can safely assume your readers know.  Examples: Richmond is the capital of Virginia. The North won the U.S. Civil War.  Fish breathe using gills.

Not all facts are common knowledge. You will still need to cite:

• Facts that surprise you or your reader.  Example: Michelangelo was shorter than average (Hughes and Elam 4).
• Facts that include statistics or other numbers. Example: As of June 2009, forty-two states had laws that explicitly ban gay marriage, and six states have legalized it (U.S. Department of Labor).
• If you use the exact words of another writer, even if the content could be considered common knowledge.  Example: Lincoln’s first campaign dates to “1832, when he ran as a Whig for the Illinois state legislature from the town of New Salem and lost” (Lincoln 451).

Direct Quotes

Direct quotes are portions of a text taken word for word and placed inside of a work. Readers know when an author is using a direct quote because it is denoted by the use of quotation marks and an in-text citation.

Direct quotes might also be formatted as a “block quote” which occurs if the borrowed language is longer than four (4) lines of text. In MLA, A block quote requires the author to indent the borrowed language by 1/2 an inch, place the citation at the end of the block, and remove quotation marks.

Be sure to be careful when using direct quotes because failing to write the text exactly as it appears in the original is not an ethical use of direct quotes. Also, failing to bracket the quote with quotation marks and/or citing it inside the text is also unethical and both mistakes are a form of plagiarism.

When Should I Use Direct Quotes?

Generally speaking, direct quotes should be used sparingly because you want to rely on your own understanding of material and avoid over-relying on another’s words – you want your voice to be the dominant one in an argument. Over quoting does not reinforce your credibility as an author; however, according to the Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL) you should use direct quotes when “the author you are quoting has coined a term unique to her or his research and relevant within your own paper.”²

The Basics of Directly Quoting

1. All quoted material should be enclosed in quotation marks to set it off from the rest of the text. The exception to this is block quotes, which require different formatting.
2. Quoted material should be an accurate word-for-word reproduction from the author’s original text. You cannot alter any wording or any spelling. If you must do so, you must use a bracket or an ellipsis (see number 2 in the section below).
3. A clear signal phrase/attribution tag should precede each quotation.
4. A parenthetical citation should follow each quotation.

The Hard Part of Directly Quoting: Integrating Quotes into Your Writing

As the author of your essay, you should explain the significance of each quotation to your reader. This goes far beyond simply including a signal phrase. Explaining the significance means indicating how the quoted material supports the point you are making in that paragraph. Remember, just because you add a quote does not mean that you have made your point. Quotes never speak for themselves. When quoting material, ask yourself how and why does that quoted material make the point you think it does?

Below are some helpful phrases for explaining quoted materials where “X” represents the author’s last name:
1. (quoted material). What X’s point demonstrates is that . . .
2. (quoted material). Here, X is not simply stating _________, she is also demonstrating _________.
3. (quoted material). This is an example of _________because ______________.
4. (quoted material). This statement clearly shows _________because __________.

Sometimes, in order to smoothly integrate quoted material into your paper, you may need to remove a word or add a word to make the quote make sense. If you make any change to quoted material, it must be formatted correctly using an ellipsis or brackets. In the following, a portion of Hamlet’s “To Be, or Not To Be” soliloquy is used as the exemplar:

When in doubt, strive to allow your voice – not a quote from a source – to begin each paragraph, precede each quote, follow each quote, and end each paragraph. Quotes that are integrated well into a paper allow you to control the paper. That is what a reader wants to see: your ideas and the way that you engage sources to shape and discuss your ideas.

Paraphrasing and Summarizing

While quoting may be the first thing that many people think of when they think about integrating sources, paraphrasing, summarizing, and citing data are also ways to incorporate information from outside materials into your essays or projects.

Paraphrasing

1. Paraphrases allow you to describe specific information from a source (ideas from a paragraph or several consecutive paragraphs) in your own words.
2. Paraphrases are like translations of an author’ original idea. You retain the detail of the original thought, but you express it in your own way.
3. Paraphrases of the text should be expressed in your own words, with your own sentence structure, in your own way. You should not simply “word swap”; that is, replace a few words from the original with synonyms.
4. If you must use a few of the author’s words within your paraphrase, they must have quotation marks around them.
5. Paraphrases often include attributive tags (or signal phrases) to let your readers know where the paraphrased material begins.
6. Paraphrased material should be followed by a parenthetical citation.
7. As with a quote, you need to explain to your reader why the paraphrased material is significant to the point you are making in your paper.

Paraphrase Carefully

A paraphrase should use vocabulary and sentence structure different from the source’s vocabulary and sentence structure. Potential plagiarism occurs when a writer goes through a sentence from a source and inserts synonyms without rewriting the sentence as a whole.

Source: Citizens of this generation witnessed the first concerted attempt to disseminate knowledge about disease prevention and health promotion, downplaying or omitting altogether information about disease treatment.

Potential plagiarism: People of this period observed the first organized effort to share information about preventing disease and promoting health, deemphasizing or skipping completely information about treating diseases (Murphy 141).

The sentence structure of the bad paraphrase is identical to the sentence structure of the source, matching it almost word for word. The writer has provided an in-text citation pointing to Murphy as the source of the information, but she is, in fact, plagiarizing because she hasn’t written her own sentence.

Summarizing

1. Summaries allow you to describe general ideas from a source. You do not express detailed information as you would with a paraphrase.
2. Summaries are shorter than the original text.
3. Any summaries of the text should not include direct wording from the original source. All text should be in your words, though the ideas are those of the original author.
4. A signal phrase should let your readers know where the summarized material begins.
5. If you are offering a general summary of an entire article, there is no need to cite a specific page number.

Effectively Using Sources

Academic writing requires the use of signal phrases to properly embed quoted material and document information. While basic signal phrases require the use of the author’s name and a strong verb, attribution tags emphasize different types of information related to the source in order to set up the quoted material and can help shape your reader’s response to the information presented. In grammatical terms, an attribution tag can be viewed as an appositive, an adjectival clause following a noun that modifies the noun and provides contextual information. In the following examples, the signal phrases (appositives) are italicized:

What you have to say is more important than the passage you are citing, so you want the information leading into your evidence/ support to work to your advantage. A basic signal phrase is a device used to smoothly integrate quotations and paraphrases into your essay and consists of an author’s name and an active verb indicating how the author is presenting the material. It is important for beginning academic writers to use signal phrases to clearly attribute textual evidence to an author and to avoid interrupting the flow of an essay.

Referring to the Author within a Signal Phrase

In most instances, a signal phrase should contain only the last name of the author or authors of the source text (as opposed to the author’s first and last name). APA style guidelines require no reference to a first name at any point in an essay and few if any gender specific pronouns. But in MLA papers, if you are referring to an author for the first time in your essay, you should include that author’s first name. Any future signal phrase should refer to the author by last name only or with a pronoun when it’s perfectly clear to whom the pronoun refers.

Notice how each signal phrase verb is followed by a comma, which is then followed by one space before the opening quotation mark.

Varying Your Verbs

While it’s important to use signal phrase verbs, you’ll want to make sure that you vary them to avoid repetition (rather than simply using “states” throughout your entire essay for example) in order to maintain your readers’ interest and to indicate the author’s intended use of the excerpted material. See below for examples of strong signal phrase verbs.

Why Use Signal Phrases and Attributive Tags?

Attributive tags are phrases that offer additional information about the source from which the infomration is coming. While many students may see attributive tags as filler, they can provide the audience with valuable insight into how you, the writer, intend the quoted material to be read/viewed. In addition to setting up the source evidence, attribution tags can also be used as meaningful transitions moving your readers between your ideas and those of your support.

In most instances, the first time the author is mentioned in an MLA style essay, it is a good idea to provide an attributive tag as well as the author’s first and last name. When using APA style, list the author’s first initial and last name. Style will vary with studies including multiple authors.

While providing the author’s credentials and title of the source are the most common attributions used, there are others.

Types of Attributive Tags (attributive tag is underlined in each example)

Type: Author’s credentials are indicated.

Example: Grace Chapmen, Curator of Human Health & Evolutionary Medicine at the Springfield Natural History Museum, explains…

Purpose: Presenting an author’s credentials should help build credibility for the passage you are about to present. Including the author’s credentials gives your readers a reason to consider your sources.

Type: Author’s lack of credentials is indicated.

Example: Matthew Spencer, whose background is in marriage counseling, not foreign policy, claims…

Purpose: Identifying an author’s lack of credentials in a given area can help illustrate a lack of authority on the subject matter and persuade the audience not to adopt the author’s ideas. Pointing to an author’s lack of credentials can be beneficial when developing your response to counterarguments.

Type: Author’s social or political stance, if necessary to the content, is explained.

Example: Employing nonviolent civil disobedience, Roland Hayes, prominent civil rights activist, preaches… Ralph Spencer, who has ties to the White Nationalist movement, denies…

Purpose: Explaining the author’s social or political stance can help a reader to understand why that author expresses a particular view. This understanding can positively or negatively influence an audience. Be careful to avoid engaging in logical fallacies such as loaded language.

Type: Publisher of the source is identified.

Example: According to a recent CNN poll…

Purpose: Identifying the publisher of the passage can help reinforce the credibility of the information presented and you can capitalize on the reputation/ credibility of the publisher of the source material.

Type: Title of the Source is included.

Example: In “Understanding Human Behavior,” Riley argues …

Purpose: Informs the reader where the cited passage is being pulled from.

Type: Information that establishes context is presented.

Example: In a speech presented during a Free Speech rally, Elaine Wallace encourages …

Purpose: Presenting the context that the original information was presented can help the audience understand the author’s purpose more clearly.

How to Cite

Different fields prefer different methods of citing the use of sources, but all of these methods consist of two components, in-text citations and end-text citations.  In English courses, the common citation style is called MLA, from the initials of the Modern Language Association. When it comes to documentation, learn to notice and apply the particular style that you are asked to use. Brown Library has online citation guides (http://infoguides.virginiawestern.edu/citations) for several styles.

In-Text Citation — aka Parenthetical Citations

For the purposes of this explanation, we will focus on MLA formatting, as this is the standard formatting used in English classes. The classic parenthetical citation includes the author’s name and, if there is one, a page number. To learn more about parenthetical citation and see some examples, see the Purdue OWL article on “MLA In-Text Citations: The Basics” (available from owl.english.purdue.edu).

Here’s an example:

(Fogbottom 16)

If there are two authors, list both (with a page number, if available):

(Smith and Jones 24)

If there are three or more authors, list the first author only and add “et al.”* (with a page number, if available):

(Smith et al. 62)

*et al means “and others.” If a text or source has three or more authors, MLA style has us just list the first one with et al.

If you’re quoting or paraphrasing someone who was cited by the author of one of your sources, then that’s handled a bit differently. For example, what if you quote Smith, but you found that quote in the article by Fogbottom. In this case, you should introduce the speaker (Smith) as described above, and then cite the source for the quote, like this:

(qtd. in Fogbottom)

Let’s imagine you’re working with a newspaper article entitled, “What’s New in Technology,” enclosed in quotation marks to indicate that this is an article title, and with no known author. Here’s what that would look in a parenthetical citation:

(“What’s New” B6)

If there is no author and you’re working with an electronic article, use the first one or two words in your parenthetical citation, again, enclosed in quotation marks. Let’s imagine you’re working with a web article entitled, “Pie Baking for Fun and Profit” and with no author. Here’s what that would look in a parenthetical citation:

(“Pie Baking”)

The parenthetical citation should be added at the end of the sentence that contains the source material. Let’s go back to the Fogbottom example and see how a parenthetical citation would work:

“Poodle grooming is a labor of love. It takes years of practice to be good at it, but once learned, it’s a fun and worthwhile career” (Fogbottom).

Here’s what it would look like if we used it with a paraphrase instead of a quotation:

Although it takes a long time to become a skilled poodle groomer, it’s well worth the effort and leads to a good career (Fogbottom).

Note that the citation is placed at the end of the sentence; the period comes after the parentheses. Misplacing the period is one of the most common formatting errors made by students.

Using parenthetical citation makes it crystal clear that a sentence comes from source material. This is, by far, the easiest way to cite or identify your source materials, too.

If using parenthetical citations is easy, why would we bother with using introduction or linking language to identify sources?

Good question! There would be nothing wrong with only using parenthetical citations all the way through your writing—it would absolutely do the job of citing the material. But, it wouldn’t read smoothly and would feel somewhat rough because every time a parenthetical citation popped up, the reader would be “stopped” in place for a moment. Using a combination of introduction, linking language, and parenthetical citation, as needed, makes the writing smoother and easier to read. It also integrates the source material with the writer’s ideas. We call this synthesis, and it’s part of the craft of writing.

End-Text Citations — AKA The Works Cited Page

The Works Cited page list all of the sources that were used in the essay. This page gives more information than the parenthetical citations do, including the specific details needed for readers to find the sources for themselves.  These entries all follow a specific and consistent format so that it is easy for readers to find the information they are looking for and so the shape and type of that information is consistent no matter who is writing the entries.

MLA updates its formatting from time to time, so rely on an up-to-date MLA citation guide to ensure that the formatting of your entries is accurate.  VCU Writes MLA End Citation Models  and Purdue University’s Online Writing Center  are two respected sources that you can reference for citation formatting.

For the actual Works Cited page, though, follow these basic formatting guidelines:

• Begin the Works Cited as a separate page of your essay. Continue the page numbering, so if you have a four page essay the Works Cited becomes page five.
• The title is Work Cited if you have just one source and Works Cited is have you more than one source.
• Center the title at the top of the page.
• Organize the entries in alphabetical order based on the first item in each entry.
• Double-space the entire page, with no extra spaces between entries.
• Use hanging indent format, so that the first line of each entry begins at the left margin. The second and subsequent lines are indented five spaces (generally one tab).

1 The following examples come from: Bartholomae, David. “Inventing the University.” Journal of Basic Writing, vol. 5, no. 3, 1986, pp. 4-23.
2 “How to Use Quotation Marks.” Purdue Online Writing Lab, https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_writing/punctuation/quotation_marks/index.html. Accessed 8 May 2020.

3 The citation for the following examples is: Langer, Ellen J. The Power of Mindful Learning. Da Capo Press, 1997.

“Finding and Using Sources” uses information from:

Informed Arguments: A Guide to Writing and Research  by Terri Pantuso, Sarah LeMire, and Kathy Anders, which was published in 2019 by Texas A&M University with an attribution, non-commerical, share-alike creative commons license. It was accessed through the Open Textbook Library.

Let’s Get Writing by Elizabeth Browning, Kirsten DeVries, Kathy Boylan, Jenifer Kurtz, and Katelyn Burton, which was published by Virginia Western Community Colleges and uses a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License,

The Word on College Reading and Writing by Carol Burnell, Jaime Wood, Monique Babin, Susan Pesznecker, and Nicole Rosevear which is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.