Mr. White’s History Class

Writing a Research Paper – Part 5: Paraphrasing and In-Text Citation

Practice

ObjectivesWhat do we want to know how to do?Paraphrase correctlyUse in-text citations

Part I: Paraphrasing

What is paraphrasing?To paraphrase is to take a piece of

information from a source, and to rephrase it in your own words, and for your purposes.

What you should do:Read the piece of information that you want to

use. Read it more than once, if you need to.Without looking at the information, summarize

it in your own words on a separate sheet of paper (or whatever you might use)

Then, check your paraphrasing with the original to make sure that it retains the original meaning

PracticeNow, let’s practice.

Using the resource you have, choose a paragraph.

Read the paragraph.Then, using a separate sheet of paper,

paraphrase the meaning of this paragraph in your own words without looking at the original

Then, compare the two.Your paraphrase should retain all of the original

meaning of the first, but should not be so similar that they sound like the same thing with words changed

Part II: In-text Citations

What is an in-text citation?An in-text citation tells the reader of our

paper where we got our information from, and gives proper credit to the author of the information, or the source.

What we need to create an in-text citation:A References Page, with references properly

recordedA piece of information in the text that we

took from another source

How to do itFirst, if your References List is set up properly,

then you should have something at the beginning of each source that is the author’s last name, or the title of a source.

Whenever you use a piece of information from a source, you will create an in-text citation. The citation immediately follows the information that you’ve paraphrased or quoted from the original text.

To create the citation, simply place the following information inside parentheses:The name of the author (if available)The year of publication (if available)The page number (if available)

PracticeUsing the source that you have paraphrased,

create an in-text citation for that information.You may do this on a separate sheet of paper

for nowWhen you have finished the in-text citation,

check that it:Comes after the information that you’ve

paraphrased or quotedProvides the author, date of publication or

retrieval, and the page number (if any are absent, simply skip them)

Part III: Avoiding Plagiarism

Avoiding PlagiarismHere are some key tips to avoiding plagiarism:

You must create a References List. This lets the reader know what sources you used. Always do this as you find your sources, not as you find your paper.

Common knowledge is information that appears in at least three of your sources. You do not need to create citations for this. When in doubt, create a citation.

When you use information from another source, you must quote or paraphrase. If you paraphrase, make sure to follow the good paraphrasing techniques in this presentation. Do NOT simply change words around; paraphrasing means creating a new thought that explains the original

When you quote or paraphrase, you must create an in-text citation. Use the techniques that we discussed in this presentation.

Directly copying and pasting is blatant plagiarism!

SourcesPurdue Online Writing Lab. Purdue

University. Web. 10 January 2012.