Integrating Sources into Your Writing University Writing Center Jaclyn Wells

Using Sources College writing assignments often ask you to incorporate others’ writing. For example:

You might be asked to write a research paper that refers to a specific number of credible sources that provide information on your topic.

You might be asked to write a proposal that uses information and examples from outside sources in order to support your claims.

You might be asked to write a literary analysis in which you need to reference other scholarly interpretations of the work you are analyzing.

Summary, Paraphrase, QuotationsIn general, it’s a good idea to use a combination of summarizing, paraphrasing, and direct quoting from sources. An essay that balances these strategies will provide the smoothest integration of sources and the most effective use of information.

How to Choose When deciding whether to summarize an entire source, paraphrase a passage, or directly quote a small segment, you will need to consider your specific writing task, what your reader needs, and how you are using the source.

In particular, considering the reader will help you make the most rhetorically effective choice.

Sometimes, your reader needs an overview of a source’s overall, or big picture, argument.

Other times, the reader needs an explanation of a specific part of an argument.

And other times, the reader needs the impact of a source’s original words.

Choice of Summary If your answer to any of these questions is yes, you might want to summarize your source.

Are you trying to give your reader a broad sense of a source’s major point(s)? Are you trying to show another general argument that has been made about a topic before presenting your own? Are you trying to provide a broad outline of a source before presenting its more specific points to your reader?

Summary: How-To When you summarize, you explain the main points or ideas of a source to your reader. Your goal is to get at the general idea or argument from the writing, rather than the specifics.

When summarizing, it is important to: Provide a “big picture” sense of the source Put ideas in your own words Name the author and source Communicate the source’s meaning as honestly

as possible

Summary Example The following paragraph summarizes the example passage on your handout.

In “The Benefits of Facebook ‘Friends’: Social Capital and College Students' Use of Online Social Network Sites,” Ellison, Steinfield, and Lampe conclude that online social networking sites like Facebook may have positive outcomes for the college students who use them. These positive outcomes, particularly the preservation of relations across communities, contrast with previous literature that warns of the potential negative impact of using sites like Facebook.

Choice of ParaphraseIf your answer to any of these questions is yes, you might need to paraphrase from your source:

Are you trying to give your reader a sense of a specific part of the writing, as opposed to a general sense of the whole source?

Are you trying to support your own argument with information, an example, or an argument from a specific passage of a source?

Are you trying to make an expert’s argument accessible to your reader?

Paraphrase: How-To When you paraphrase, you put a passage from a source in your own words. Generally, your paraphrase will be around the same length as the original passage or perhaps a bit shorter. It should sound like your writing, not the original.

As with summarizing, it is important to give credit to the original author when you paraphrase, and it is also necessary to communicate the author’s meaning honestly. It’s also necessary to show your reader the significance of the paraphrase (rather than assuming they know).

Paraphrase Example The following sentences paraphrase the second paragraph of the example passage on your handout. Ellison, Steinfield, and Lampe argue that Facebook is particularly useful in helping students maintain relationships when moving from high school to college, and that it may help students maintain connections after college. They suggest that colleges encourage use of social networking sites because of these potential benefits.

Choice of Quotation If your answer to any of these questions is yes, you might choose to quote directly from your source:

Are you trying to emphasize a very specific section of a source?

Are you trying to communicate not only the meaning, but also the exact phrasing, of a section of a source?

Are you trying to appeal to emotion (pathos) or credibility (ethos) by using your source’s exact words?

Quotation: How-To When you quote, you copy an exact portion from a source into your writing. It’s important to show your reader the significance of the quote—you do not want to assume that readers automatically understand why you’re including it or how the quote relates to your larger argument.

You also should: Copy the segment identically (even punctuation counts!) Give credit to the original author and double-check your

quotation marks Introduce the quote so that it flows smoothly from your

own writing Provide necessary explanation of the quote and its

significance to your argument

Quotation Example The following short paragraph offers an example of how you might integrate a quote from the example passage on your handout.

Social networking sites like Facebook have often been criticized for discouraging in-person interaction between people. On the other hand, Ellison, Steinfield, and Lampe argue that “Online interactions do not necessarily remove people from their offline world but may indeed be used to support relationships and keep people in contact, even when life changes move them away from each other.”

Introductory Verbs The verbs you use to introduce quotes, summaries, and paraphrases help weave your source’s words with your own writing. Some useful verbs for introducing sources include:

acknowledgesclaims insistssuggests concurs revealsobserves considers (dis)agrees argues proposes remarksconcludes expresses believesspeculates denies condemnsadvises interprets statescomplains concedes points outrefutes offers notes

A Note about Citations You’ll notice that the examples do not include in-text citations. A couple of notes:

No page numbers are cited because the example source is an online document with no page numbers. If you were paraphrasing from a source with page numbers, you would include the page number in an in-text citation, according to MLA guidelines.

The example summary, paraphrase, and quote name the authors. If they were not named in the text, you would include their names in an in-text citation, according to MLA guidelines. See the Purdue Online Writing Lab for more information about citing sources.