Seminar in Natural Science (online)
Using & Documenting Sources: Tips and Guidelines
It may not produce a thrill every minute (or every hour, for that matter), but mastering the craft of documenting sources is one of the most important skills you can develop as an undergraduate researcher. Using sources in an academic paper--whether a short argumentative essay or a doctoral thesis--involves two key steps: (1) critically evaluating the source and (2) citing it properly within your own writing. Seems pretty straightforward, doesn't it? Add to that basic formula the fact that most high school students should've been trained in fundamental citation procedures, and you might be tempted to assume that all college students are comfortable with and skilled at source documentation.
In fact, that's not the case, for the very good reason that documenting sources isn't all that simple. Paraphrasing is tougher than it looks at first glance, and the many different documentation styles in current use (e.g., MLA style, Chicago style, APA style) create more confusion than clarity. Moreover, becoming good at citing/documenting sources takes time and practice, just as with writing. That's why I spend time in all my seminars talking about documentation, asking you to read about the APA system, and going over key issues such as paraphrasing and plagiarism.
In the end, our discussion of source documentation boils down to three things: using sources intelligently and critically; writing clearly and effectively; and maintaining high ethical standards as a student researcher.
Overall Considerations on
Using Sources
Normally I prefer to stay away from maxims, but these particular points are worth pondering.
· One good source is often better than ten mediocre ones. Every semester I get someone (usually the class jokester) who reads this and says, "So it's OK to use just one source for our paper, right?" No. Good one, though! I simply mean that quality is more important than quantity when gathering and using sources in a research paper. Most readers (and almost all teachers) can see through a padded bibliography, especially one with a lot of "lightweight" sources.
· Be aware of unconscious bias in searching for and/or reviewing your sources. This applies mostly to the "hunt" for sources, but also the selection process in which you determine which source you actually cite in a paper. Sometimes when a writer has developed a strong thesis (and opinion) on her issue, she's tempted to look for sources that support that opinion and ignore (or suppress, or minimize) ones that don't. Interestingly, this could happen on a sub-conscious as well as a conscious level. As a researcher, therefore, you need to strive for some measure of objectivity in your search for information--some degree of fairness and open-mindedness about what sorts of things you're looking for. Sure, you could write a convincing paper which cites only sources that confirm your preliminary hypothesis; but if you've simply scrounged up support for a preconceived notion, have you really learned anything? Moreover, are you going to convince astute and intelligent readers (such as your critically reasoning classmates), who might very well check on your sources and see whether or not you've "cooked" your research?
· Don’t let one source dominate your research. This is an easy trap to fall into, for students and pros alike. You're searching for books or articles on your topic, innocently enough, and then bam! You find a paper that's exactly like what you wanted to say. Or you find a book that's so comprehensive and well-executed that you cannot for the life of you imagine any other way of approaching the topic. So, you use that source in your paper--and more often than not, that sources ends up completely taking over the structure and ideas of your paper. That's unfortunate, because at that point--even if you've properly cited and ethically paraphrased the source--you've no longer written an original paper; you've just summarized that key source. Instead, you need to find multiple sources/perspectives on your topic. Keep in mind that no single source, no matter how good it is, represents the end-all and be-all on your topic--other viewpoints are out there, and you should be able to find them with a little more work. The hunt is part of the fun and joy of research!
Reading Sources Critically
· Comprehend it, then evaluate it. If you can't understand a source after 2 readings, move on to something else. Once you understand what the source is saying, don't stop there: go into critical evaluation mode.
·
Read source as thoroughly as possible.
No problem with periodical and most web sources, which are of
shorter length. Books are a
different matter, depending on the length, difficulty, and time frame for
your research. If you're
pressed for time on a given project, read the introduction, conclusion,
and the most relevant chapters. Other
key sections of the book can be identified using the table of contents and
the index. If you've got the
luxury of time, it goes without saying you should read the entire text.
Nevertheless, very few researchers can read everything they
want to with the reality of an approaching writing deadline.
· Represent the source fairly. This seems obvious, but it simply means making sure you understand the overall context and purpose of a given source, and keeping that in mind as you evaluate and represent it. I once had a student several years ago who cited book by a certain author (call him Stevens) in a very negative way. However, her source for this harsh review of Stevens was a different author writing a newspaper review. When I asked her if she had read the book in question by Stevens, or even looked at it, she said "no"; she didn't want to waste her time reading a book she already knew was junk. Huh? How can you know a book is "junk" if you don't at least take the time to read it yourself? (Turns out her source for this bad review of Stevens had a particular axe to grind against the author; not a big surprise.)
·
Take thorough notes.
See below
·
Get the full bibliographic citation.
Ditto.
The First Step:
Taking Good Notes
There are as many note-taking methods as there are researchers. Personally, I use a variety of methods, and the choice varies according to the type of project I'm working on, where I'm working (at home or at a research library), and how I need to use the research. Whether you use the old-fashioned note card method or a more sophisticated computer-based system, you need to make sure you mark all quotations as quotations, cite the pages from which you get information, paraphrase your sources accurately, and record the full bibliographic information for each source. Can I be blunt here? Nothing sucks quite so much as having returned a key book to the library, only to find out that you didn't fully document a juicy quote from p. 44 of that book. Trust me!
It's absolutely vital in the note-taking stage to take great pains to document your sources carefully, and to indicate what is and what isn't a direct quote. Historian and popular author Doris Kearns Goodwin recently got herself in hot water when she plagiarized dozens of passages in one of her books. When called on it, she said in official statements that the slips resulted from sloppy note-taking methods on her part in which she neglected to properly indicate that certain handwritten notes were in fact quotations from other sources. I couldn't help but think that her explanations were lame excuses along the lines of "the dog ate my homework." Any competent undergraduate writer should be able to take accurate notes and distinguish between quoted and original material. I certainly think a professional historian and best-selling author should, too!
Should
I Quote . . . or Paraphrase?
So, you've got some sources, you've taken notes and read them critically, and now you want to incorporate them into your paper. How should you do it: by summarizing, quoting, paraphrasing, or all three? As a veteran writer and reader of scholarly prose, I'd recommend the last approach: a mixture of ways to refer to sources increases the readability of your prose (good for your readers) and is more interesting to write (good for you the writer). Consider these additional observations:
Think about
Using Direct Quotations:
· When you use the work of others as primary data (e.g., when you quote a section of Dickinson's poetry and then analyze that quote)
· When you want to appeal to the source's authority (e.g., a weighty quote from Albert Einstein or inspirational words from Martin Luther King can lend context and force to one of your points)
· When the specific words of the source are important (i.e., you can't say them any other way without losing the luster and bite of the original)
On the
Other Hand, Paraphrase your Sources:
· When you’re more interested in content rather than in how a writer expresses herself
· When you could say the same thing more clearly
· When it's advantageous to show your mastery of the subject matter
Mike's Tip on the Value of Paraphrasing: Want in on a little secret that nobody ever told me, and that I had to figure out the hard way? Effective paraphrasing has a hidden but palpable benefit: it shows your mastery of the material. Think about it: how hard is it to quote a source? Not very, because all you have to do is copy the original. Anybody, no matter how intellectually-challenged, can quote. Paraphrasing, however, takes mental gumption: you must understand the source in order to paraphrase it effectively. Therefore, if you want to show a tough-minded professor that you know your stuff--paraphrase! Just make sure you do it right. More on that below.
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Last updated
09/09/09