English Composition 2: What Must Be Documented?

		Daniel Kies Department of English College of DuPage

Composition 2 English 1102		Contact Form

Quoting, Paraphrasing, and Acknowledging Sources



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When we use library or research sources in our work, we should give credit to the origins of the ideas that we are incorporating into our work.

Let me back up and put this in the most general way. Humans are social animals: we learn from each other. That is good. However, as a matter of politeness, we should acknowledge the people from whom we have learned. That is the reason for acknowledging our sources with citations.

What's more: it's just as important to acknowledge the origins of an idea as it is to acknowledge the origins of a quotation. If we use the ideas of another person (not just his/her words alone), we still need to acknowledge our debt to that other person.

Ok. I know what you are thinking: won't citations make me look dumb? Won't too many citations make me look like I am just stitching the essay together from sources?

Not necessarily. If you paraphrase effectively (and use direct quotations sparingly), and if you incorporate the sources into your own ideas too, your reader is likely to think, "Hey, this writer really has done his/her homework and pulled together all the relevant sources in a cogent and coherent manner! This is a very effective essay." In short, we must acknowledge quotations and ideas, but we need not acknowledge that which is consider "common knowledge":

Quotations If we use an author's specific word or words, we must place those words within quotation marks and we give a citation to the original author.

Ideas If we borrow an author's specific ideas, we must document their source. As Birk and Birk explain, we plagiarized

when the writer presents, as his [sic] own, THE SEQUENCE OF IDEAS, THE ARRANGEMENT OF MATERIAL, THE PATTERN OF THOUGHT of someone else, even though he expresses it in his own words. The language may be his, but he is presenting as the work of his brain, and taking credit for, the work of another's brain. He is, therefore, guilty of plagiarism if he fails to give credit to the original author of the pattern of ideas.

This aspect of plagiarism presents difficulties because the line is sometimes unclear between borrowed thinking and thinking that is our own. We all absorb information and ideas from other people. In this way we learn. But in the normal process of learning, new ideas are digested; they enter our minds and are associated and integrated with ideas already there; when they come out again, their original pattern is broken; they are re-formed and rearranged. We have made them our own. Plagiarism occurs when a sequence of ideas is transferred from a source to a paper without the process of digestion, integration, and reordering in the writer's mind, and without acknowledgment in the paper.¹

I like Birk and Birk's explanation here, because they do understand how difficult it is to make a distinction sometimes, especially when we are so absorbed in our research that it becomes unclear what derives from a resource and what derives from us. As a rule of thumb, always use a citation if you have any doubt about the origins of an idea.

Common Knowledge It is not necessary to acknowledge certain kinds of factual information considered to be common knowledge: e.g, birth and death dates of well-known figures, the dates of historical events, etc. Generally speaking, if we can find the information in several different standard reference works (such as a dictionary or encyclopedia), then we can consider the information common knowledge. (However, if we do use the exact words of some reference source, then we must credit that source.)

For further information on summarizing and paraphrasing sources, see any of these books, at least one of which should be available in your local library:

Hairston, Maxine, and John J. Ruszkiewicz. The Scott, Foresman Handbook for Writers. 3rd ed. New York: Harper Collins, 1993.

Hodges, John C., and Mary E. Whitten. Harbrace College Handbook. 11th ed. San Diego: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1990.

Lunsford, Andrea, and Robert Connors. The St. Martin's Handbook. New York: St. Martin's 1989.

Spatt, Brenda. Writing from Sources. 3rd ed. New York: St. Martin's, 1991

Each professional organization publishes its own style manual. These style manuals provide information about the specific documentation system used by that profession. Consult the guide for your profession if you are writing a piece for that audience. (In our course here, we use the MLA format, the most common format for the humanities and liberal arts.) The following are just a few of the most commonly used guides: quite literally, there are hundreds of different style guides.

American Medical Association, Manual for Authors and Editors

Council of Biology Editors, CBE Style Manual

The Chicago Manual of Style (widely used in publishing and journalism)

MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers

Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association

The Writing Center has handouts explaining how to use many of the standard documentation systems.

References

Newmann P. Birk and Genevieve B. Birk, A Handbook of Grammar, Rhetoric, Mechanics, and Usage, 5th ed. (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1976), 142.

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Quotations	If we use an author's specific word or words, we must place those words within quotation marks *and* we give a citation to the original author.
Ideas	If we borrow an author's specific ideas, we must document their source. As Birk and Birk explain, we plagiarized when the writer presents, as his [sic] own, THE SEQUENCE OF IDEAS, THE ARRANGEMENT OF MATERIAL, THE PATTERN OF THOUGHT of someone else, even though he expresses it in his own words. The language may be his, but he is presenting as the work of his brain, and taking credit for, the work of another's brain. He is, therefore, guilty of plagiarism if he fails to give credit to the original author of the pattern of ideas. This aspect of plagiarism presents difficulties because the line is sometimes unclear between borrowed thinking and thinking that is our own. We all absorb information and ideas from other people. In this way we learn. But in the normal process of learning, new ideas are digested; they enter our minds and are associated and integrated with ideas already there; when they come out again, their original pattern is broken; they are re-formed and rearranged. We have made them our own. Plagiarism occurs when a sequence of ideas is transferred from a source to a paper without the process of digestion, integration, and reordering in the writer's mind, and without acknowledgment in the paper.¹ I like Birk and Birk's explanation here, because they do understand how difficult it is to make a distinction sometimes, especially when we are so absorbed in our research that it becomes unclear what derives from a resource and what derives from us. As a rule of thumb, always use a citation if you have any doubt about the origins of an idea.
Common Knowledge	It is not necessary to acknowledge certain kinds of factual information considered to be common knowledge: e.g, birth and death dates of well-known figures, the dates of historical events, etc. Generally speaking, if we can find the information in several different standard reference works (such as a dictionary or encyclopedia), then we can consider the information common knowledge. (However, if we do use the exact words of some reference source, then we must credit that source.)



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