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Citing and Referencing Sources: �Introducing quotes, paraphrases and summaries of others’ work

This video is part of a project funded by the National Forum for the Enhancement of Teaching & Learning in Higher Education

DLSH@UL

Regional Writing Centre

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What are some reporting options?

Summarising—give us a gist of the information being reported, the main, most essential, most relevant points.

Sometimes the summary is not comprehensive, but limited to the information the reader needs in order to follow your logic.
Be careful, though, not to omit information that calls your logic into question.

Paraphrasing—sometimes called an indirect quote—give us precisely what the author wrote/said, but in your own words.

All the ideas in the text being reported have to be accurately represented in the paraphrase, and the reader should be clear about the context in which the original was stated.
Paraphrasing and summarising demonstrate a greater understanding of what is being said that does quoting.

Quoting—give us the exact word the source wrote or said.

The original text has to placed between two sets of double-inverted commas or speech markers.
The original text is sacrosanct, so the quotes should exactly replicate the original.
Any errors in grammar or mechanics should be left as they are, using [sic] after the error to denote that the error is not yours but appeared in the original.

Synthesizing—organises information from several sources around similarities and differences or points of agreement or disagreement.

The information on a topic (for instance, competing theories or methodologies or positions on a point of contestation) is outlined for each relevant position taken.
The researcher identifies points on which each contributor agrees and points on which they disagree; the researcher may identify the theoretical positions to which those points cohere.
The writer then organises the discussion of that topic around a comparison/contrast of where the various scholars agree or disagree, possibly explaining why it may be impossible for two competing scholars to ever agree (based on competing philosophical understandings of reality—for instance a phenomenological versus a positivist basis for understanding reality.

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Reporting and citing is discipline specific

I don’t like the term ‘academic writing’. It promotes the idea that all disciplines write in the same way. They don’t. I do a PowerPoint presentation titled Introduction to Writing in Academic Contexts that can be found on the RWC website under Student Resources, Cross-Disciplinary Workshops. I talk a little there about some of the things that all academic scholars have in common (it is hoped). However, each discipline has its own conventions. Each values different kinds of evidence. Each expresses different degrees of objectivity and certainty, etc. If engineers wrote a paper on some engineering problem, but used the conventions of the discourse on dance, no matter how sound the investigation or the findings, the paper would likely never see the light of day in an engineering journal. People identify members of the field by the writer’s/speaker’s knowledge and manipulation of the topics and discourse and genre conventions of their field.

How do people in your field talk about the stuff that people in your field talk about? Is there uniformity? Or are there subtle differences in how some topics are talked about?

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Some discipline-specific conventions (1)

From Engineering:

The importance of proximal fixation of endografts in preventing migration is well known. ^1-4

There are no introductory phrases.
The information is stated as a fact.
The attribution is to four studies that confirm the validity of the assertion.
The citation is at the end of the sentence.

In vivo experimental studies have shown that increasing the iliac fixation length significantly increases the force needed to displace stent grafts that have longitudinal columnar support. ⁶

Phenomenon reported is introduced with reference to ‘studies’, though only one is cited.
Does this way of reporting findings have the same impact as the way the information in the first sample is reported? What is different?
The reporting verb, show, positions the writer in relation to the assertion. How?
In the first sample sentence, what is the position of the writer to the assertion?

From Nursing:

Clinical opinion leaders tend to be those individuals who are “respected sources of information” (Curran et al.2005, p. 700) and are able to exert influence over others’ decision making, not as innovators but as early adopters who are well integrated with their peers.

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More discipline-specific conventions(2)

Literary studies:

Writing in 2007, Richard Begam concluded that “in imagining a Hellas of the north, Joyce might well have envisioned a country not unlike the Irish Republic of today: liberal, prosperous, cosmopolitan, modern—a country that has achieved a distinct cultural identity, while assuming its rightful place within the community of nations” (203).

Reporting verb ‘concluded’ (in the past)—like ‘found’, posits the person reporting in a neutral position
Citation (MLA) with author and date as part of the sentence, page number cited at the end of the sentence.
Note how the sentence structure accommodates the words quoted. The quote is part of a noun clause that functions like the object of ‘concluded’.

McGee asserts, “They write as if Joyce’s nationalism and his Irishness were somehow transparent to those who have the right facts. They fail to account, in other words, for their own historicity” (169).

Reporting verb ‘asserts’ (in the present) suggests the person reporting disagrees with McGee; however, the context says that the verb was chosen because it was McGee who disagreed with something that others had asserted.
Author part of the sentence. Page number follows quoted text.

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Samples of the writer’s voice

Engineering:

We found that the iliac fixation length on the first post-implantation CT scan was significantly greater in patients who had no migration than in patients who experienced stent graft migration.

Literary:

It is of course a further irony that the milkwoman’s inability to understand Irish stems from the centuries of British colonization of Ireland and Irish culture.

Political Science:

Although there have been some promising connections, our reading of the literature and subsequent discussion indicates that there is sufficient overlap in scholarly interests (and practical applications) across the fields to warrant further integration of diffusion scholarship.

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Learning strategy

Read for content, but also for form.
Pay attention to how sources are introduced, typically. Keep in mind that there are many sub-fields in your field and some of those conventions may not cross over.
Pay attention to citation conventions—where do writers in your field typically place the citation?
Pay attention to how writers comment on the information they report, but with respect to the verbs they use to report the ideas and findings of others and in terms of any commentary that precedes or follows.

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That’s all folks!

Some relevant, helpful sites:

Book a session with a peer writing tutor at www.ul.ie/rwc. Our peer tutors are good writers with good habits, processes and strategies that work. They also have a good understanding of the academic context and what your teachers and publishers are looking for, so log in and talk to one of out tutors.

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This work was funded by the National Forum for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education