Guidelines for proper use and citation of outside sources in research papers for students

1. Using Outside Sources in Your Essays T. Greene Northern Essex Community College

2. Use of Sources In this presentation, you will learn how to use sources correctly in your writing and how to avoid plagiarism.

5. Why is it important to use sources correctly? Yet, at the same time, it is important to scholars that they make ideas available for others to use. Sharing and using ideas (but not stealing them) increases everyone’s knowledge.

11. So the takeaway from this presentation so far is this: Never turn in something you did not write yourself as your own work, and always cite when you use information from another source.

13. Example Suppose you have the quote below and you want to use in a paper you are writing: The lions of wrath are wiser than the horses of instruction. (This is a line from a poem called “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell” by William Blake.)

14. Example Since William Blake, and not you, originally said this, you have to put it in quotation marks and cite the source. The lions of wrath are wiser than the horses of instruction.

15. Example Suppose the text to the right is your paper, and you’ve reached the point where you want to put your quote: Many famous poets in history have had interesting things to say about teaching and learning. Sometimes the things they have written are not what you would expect.

16. Example When you insert your quote from William Blake, you put quotation marks around it to show that it’s not your writing. But the citation isn’t complete yet. Many famous poets in history have had interesting things to say about teaching and learning. Sometimes the things they have written are not what you would expect. For example, one famous poet wrote “The lions of wrath are wiser than the horses of instruction.”

17. Example The last piece of this part of the citation is the name of the author and the page number in the book (or other source) where you read the quote. Many famous poets in history have had interesting things to say about teaching and learning. Sometimes the things they have written are not what you would expect. For example, one famous poet wrote “The lions of wrath are wiser than the horses of instruction” (Blake, 56) .

18. Example Another way to cite the source is to include the name of the author in the text of your sentence, in which case you can leave the author’s name out of the parentheses at the end. Many famous poets in history have had interesting things to say about teaching and learning. Sometimes the things they have written are not what you would expect. For example, William Blake wrote “The lions of wrath are wiser than the horses of instruction” (56).

19. Example Both of these ways of showing the citation are correct, and you can mix & match them in the same document. Which one you use is a question of style and personal preference. For example, William Blake wrote “The lions of wrath are wiser than the horses of instruction” (56) . For example, a famous poet wrote “The lions of wrath are wiser than the horses of instruction” (Blake, 56) .

20. Example There’s one more very important part to the correct use of sources. For example, a famous poet wrote “The lions of wrath are wiser than the horses of instruction” (Blake, 56). Works Cited Blake, William. “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell.” New York: Signet Books, 1976. The last page of your essay or document should be a page called “Works Cited.” This page contains the complete information on the sources cited in the text.

21. Example For example, a famous poet wrote “The lions of wrath are wiser than the horses of instruction” (Blake, 56). Works Cited Blake, William. “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell.” New York: Signet Books, 1976. This allows the reader to backtrack the information that you cite in the text to the original source. In this case, your reader would know, even though you didn’t say so in the text, that this quote appears in a copy of “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell” published by Signet Books in 1976. Every citation in the text of your document must have a corresponding entry in the list of works cited.

25. Where are the Rules for MLA Style? The ultimate authority on MLA style rules is the book MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers (currently in its 6th edition). The handout you receive in class is based on this book. You can also find many helpful guides to MLA style for free on the Web by searching “MLA Style.”