Giving Proper Credit to Sources

Taken from Mrs. FitchEnglish 11

Why do I need to give sources credit?

• If you do not give the sources of your research proper credit, you are STEALING their information and ideas. This is called PLAGIARISM.

• Stealing ideas and information is a serious offense. – Colleges and universities will KICK YOU OUT

OF SCHOOL for plagiarizing.– In very serious cases, people who plagiarize

may earn JAIL TIME and have to PAY SERIOUS FINES.

– In this class, failing to give sources credit will result in EARNING A ZERO.

When should I credit sources?

• You must give credit to the source for your information EACH AND EVERY TIME you use information from that source.

• It doesn’t matter how much information you use, you must acknowledge the source of the information.

• All borrowed ideas and information must give credit to the source. This includes ALL paraphrases, summaries, and quotations.

How do I credit sources?

• In MLA format, the proper way to give credit to a source is by using “in-text citation.”

• In-text citation means that you give credit to the source of your information in the body of your paper.

• AFTER EACH AND EVERY PIECE OF BORROWED INFORMATION you must include an in-text citation.

How do I create in-text citations?

1. Start by including the borrowed information you want to use.

2. Once you have included all the borrowed information FROM A SINGLE SOURCE you should include an in-text citation.

3. At the end of the information, but before the punctuation mark at the end of the sentence, put the author’s last name and the page number of the information in (parentheses).

• The author’s last name and the page number should NOT have a comma between them.

Examples of In-Text Citations

• As of December 2000, twenty countries were restricting use of cell phones in moving vehicles (Sundeen 8). (example of using paraphrased information)

• Under Maryland law, he could only find the defendant guilty of negligent driving and impose a $500 fine (Layton C1). (example of using summarized information)

• Morgan’s mother, Patti Pena, reports that the driver “ran a stop sign at 45 mph, broad-sided my vehicle and killed Morgan as she sat in her car seat” (Besthoff 5). (example of using quoted information)

What if…• The examples you just saw are standard

examples of in-text citations. However, sometimes you may be missing information. Here are instructions for the following situations:– If you name your author in a signal phrase

(According to Jane Smith…), you DO NOT need to name them again in the citation. Just include the page number in the citation.• According to Jane Smith, “he killed that poor little girl

because he was distracted” (17).– If your source did not have an author, use a short

form of the title and the page number in the citation.• As of 2001, at least 300 cities had considered regulating

cell-phone usage in vehicles (“Lawmakers” 2).

What if…

– If your information did not have a page number, just leave it out. Include the author’s name in your citation.• The California Highway Patrol opposes restrictions on

the use of phones while driving (Jacobs).• This is especially common with INTERNET SOURCES.

– If you have two or more titles by the same author, use the title of the source in the citation, NOT THE AUTHOR’S NAME.

– If you have a source with two or three authors, include all their last names in the citation.• (Redelmeier and Tibshirani 453)

What if…– If you have a source with four or more

authors, name only the first author’s name, followed by “et al”.• (Blaine et al. 35)

– If a company or government agency is listed as the author, name that company or agency in the citation.• (California Office of Highway Patrol 77)

– If you have two authors with the same last name, use the author’s first initial and last name in the citation.• (D. Smith 63)• (J. Smith 85)

What if…– If your source is an encyclopedia or dictionary,

include the word or entry you are referencing in the citation.• (“Crocodile”)

– If you use more than one volume of a multi-volume work, list the author, then the volume followed by a colon and the page number.• (Birchfield 2:237)

– If your source came from an anthology (a book with lots of article by lots of authors), list the author of the article in the citation, not the editor.

– If you are using a sacred text (like the Bible), include the name of the source, the book, the chapter, and the verse in the citation.• (Holy Bible, Prov. 25.21)

A few more things…

• Remember that you must include citations for all sources in the text AND in your works cited. It is a matching game. If there is a citation in the body of your paper, I should be able to find it in the works cited.

• If you have a long quote (takes up more than three TYPED lines of your paper, you must use a block quote. To create a block quote, hit enter to go to the next line, and hit the tab key like you are starting a new paragraph. Indent ALL LINES OF THE QUOTE and include the citation at the end.