15.1: Understanding Source Use

A source is anything that you didn’t write or create; a source is anything that you are using to build something that you are writing or creating. You’re probably used to thinking of sources for research papers, such as articles you found through library databases. But you will use sources in almost all your writing in college. For example, the novel, poem, or play you’re reading in English is a source for the literary analysis paper you have to write; a website is a source for a market analysis in your business class; a newspaper editorial is a source for your response in a current events class; and so on. However, it is important to remember that your sources are always supplementary to your own ideas. Your own voice and ideas should always be at the center of your paper.

Any time that you use something that you did not write or create yourself, you are using a source. If you fail to cite your sources, you are committing plagiarism.

How can I avoid plagiarism?

Plagiarism is always a serious concern for college students, but the very best way to avoid plagiarism is to take good notes on your sources and always cite your sources in your paper, either through a parenthetical citation or signal phrase. Both of these tactics are covered at length in this chapter.

Why do you have to involve sources in your writing?

Depending on the size and scope of the writing project, you may have to build arguments based on sources you’ve read in class, you may have to write an argument based on research sources, you may have to write a personal response to a course text, you may have to summarize or analyze a course text, or you may have to present on a text in class. In short, you will need to support what you communicate in the college classroom. You will need evidence. Sources are that evidence.

There is also a larger philosophical reason for using sources: when you write in academia, you take part in a conversation that has gone on for centuries before you and will go on long after you. Using sources is the main way you become involved in—and later help to shape— that conversation. You converse both with your colleagues and professors about sources, but you also converse with the sources, and that dialogue composes a large measure of your learning. In order to take part in that conversation, you need to understand the conventions of academic culture (even though you may be skeptical or critical of parts of that culture at times). These conventions are not only the conventions of American Standard English but are also the conventions of good source use.

See this video for more help understanding why we use sources in college papers.

Well Integrated and Ethical Source Use

Good source use means both ethical source use and well-integrated source use. They work together so that at the same time you are giving due credit to the creator of the source you’re using or engaging, you are making it work well with your words and ideas. Ethical Source Use means giving credit, and it also means providing the required information about the source. Giving credit in something you write may look a lot like the Burke example above, where Burke was introduced by name and then the quote was annotated. There are a number of valid ways to ethically use a source, and these often depend on what discipline you’re writing in, such as English, psychology, journalism, or history.

Well integrated source use means introducing and interacting with your sources in a meaningful way. Thoughtfully integrating sources means you do more than just drop in quotes and provide a parenthetical citation; instead you help your readers understand the source material and how it relates back to your point.

In other words, always show why you are using source. Many of us are comfortable with explaining what a source means and even how a source supports our argument. However, it is also important to show why you picked the source you picked as well. Is the source by a person who is well-known in the field? Do you want to show that you have consulted a leading expert? Does the person offer an opinion which contradicts many other people in their field? Why did you choose a person who is an outlier? Did you pick information which has been backed by other people in the field? Did you pick information which shows what the average person thinks? Is this something which is discussed in a specific community?

Why must you show that you are part of a larger conversation? We want to encourage authentic engagement. Showing you are part of a larger conversation shows that you want to interact with others in a specific community. We’ve all been part of conversations which are not natural or authentic. For example, if you have worked in customer service or retail, you are very familiar with this concept. We may have even had a specific script to follow in these conversations. Although many of these interactions might be pleasant, they really only serve to convey information from one person to the next. We do not learn and grow from these superficial interactions. When you are part of a larger conversation, you forward your own personal knowledge and the knowledge of others.

You might want to think of authentic academic conversations like conversations on social media. Many creators do not know each other personally, but they interact with each other’s content. Many creators will find a comment, place it in their own video, attribute it to the original creator, and respond to the comment. Sometimes a creator is part of a community which people find to be objectionable. Many viewers will not take any of their content seriously due to their participation in a specific community or way of thinking. Many types of social media have subgroups where people who share an interest congregate. These people often have specific terms which only other people in the community know.

In other words, although it is important to show how information supports your viewpoint, it is also important to place yourself in the conversation.

Employing the source techniques discussed in the following pages will help you use sources ethically and integrate them thoughtfully into your paper.

Avoiding Plagiarism

We discussed plagiarism briefly on pages 170-171. Generally, plagiarism is using someone else’s words or ideas without giving them credit. However, plagiarism goes deeper than this! Many people consider plagiarism to be a spectrum. We often view this spectrum as going from an attempt to intentionally steal from others to accidently forgetting proper citation methods. All plagiarism is harmful as it undermines your credibility as a writer and does not forward the academic conversation. That is, it is hard for your readers to tell who they are actually in conversation with if plagiarize. However, some acts of plagiarism are accidental and can be fixed easily.

Let’s look at the ten most common types of plagiarism:

1. Submitting another’s work, word-for-word, as one’s own
2. Containing significant portions of text from a single source without alterations
3. Changing key words and phrases but retaining the essential content of the source
4. Mixing paraphrased material from multiple sources
5. Borrowing generously from one’s previous work without citation
6. Combining perfectly cited sources with copied passages without citation
7. Mixing copied material from multiple sources
8. Citing non-existent sources or including inaccurate information about sources
9. Including proper citation of sources but containing almost no original work
10. Including proper citation but relying too closely on the text’s original wording and/or structure

The above list originally appeared in https://www.turnitin.com/static/plagiarism-spectrum/ from The Plagiarism Spectrum: Instructor Insights into the 10 Types of Plagiarism. The website contains longer explanations of each type as well as extended examples.

As you can see from the list above, academic papers value a writer’s original thoughts. We show appreciation for an author’s hard work and ideas by citing them and using their work ethically. We show appreciation for our own thoughts by showing clear boundaries between our work and a source’s material and by relying on our own analysis. In other words, most of the types of plagiarism above do not give you space as a writer to synthesize information and come up with your own original conclusions. Remember, your audience is interested in what you think, as supported by outside texts.