Mastering the Essay Lesson 6 – Understanding Research & Proper Citation, Part 2

Writing Lesson/Discussion

- Understand academic honesty. What is it? Why do people violate it? Is it only plagiarism if you have a “bad” intention?

- Know when to cite someone else’s work: o When the information you are describing is not common

knowledge/was not something you knew before researching it. o When you quote a source. o When you paraphrase someone else’s words. o When you summarize something from someone else’s work.

- Ideas are common, and no one holds a monopoly on them. However, their particular way of expressing their viewpoint on an idea remains their intellectual property. You do not need to cite simply because you are writing about the same topic as some other author.

- Proper introduction, formatting, and citation protects both the original author and the person citing it.

- Come to understand why styles and formats are actually important, not just an arbitrary set of rules.

- Last week you started learning more about Chicago style, one of the most popular styles, especially in humanities and social sciences. Over this course, you’ll be introduced to three different styles (Chicago, APA, and MLA) and get two weeks’ worth of practice on each of them.

How to footnote a book in Chicago Style:

- Never manually create a footnote—always use the feature on your word processor for inserting it. If you don’t know where to find it, look up “Footnote” in the Help section of your word processor.

- Footnotes usually come after punctuation marks in CMS. - The basic pattern for citation looks something like this, but you can look up the

pattern for any kind of citation on a website like Stylebook or the Chicago Manual of Style:

Author’s First name Last name followed by a comma, Title in italics (Enclosed in parentheses city of publication followed by colon: name of publishing house followed by comma, year of publication followed by closed parenthesis) comma, page number where you found your information followed by period. Michelle Stacy, The Fasting Girl: A True Victorian Medical Mystery (New York: Tarcher/Putnam, 2002), 18.

- If your footnote runs more than one line, indent the additional lines.

- If you cite a source more than once in the same essay, you do not have to give the full citation every time.

- If you cite only one work by an author of a particular name, you may use the author’s last name and the page number or other reference after the first citation. For example, If you cite Michelle Stacy again, you could cite this way:

Stacy, 74.

- If you cite more than one work by the same author or two authors of the same last name, throw in the name of the book as well on subsequent citations:

Stacy, The Fasting Girl, 4. Stacy, The Child of the Sun, 98. How to use a quotation:

- Quotations are one of the most important tools we can use to back up theses. The trick is to use them to highlight the merits of our own writing not to replace it.

- Understand ways quotations could be misused. Possible examples: o Filling the essay with so many quotations that it is more the writing of

other authors than your own work. o Using quotes just because you like the quote or it makes you look smart,

rather than because it flows from your thesis. o Including quotes without analyzing them or directly showing the reader

how they contribute to backing up your thesis. - Never just plop a quote into your writing unexpectedly—introduce it and let the

reader know it’s coming! For instance you might mention the author’s name, and use language to indicate a quote is coming up. For example:

o In the words of philologist Seo Jang-Geum, “I shall eat a ham sandwich.” o Jean-Pierre O’Higgins was known to remark, “The rain in Spain stays

mainly in the plain.” o Some, like Margaret Dashwood, have suggested that “piracy is our only option.”

- Never assume a quotation speaks for itself! You should have at least one sentence commenting on the quotation and connecting it to the main thread of your argument. Explain what it means in context of your essay, or the ramifications it has. For example:

o Some, like Margaret Dashwood, have suggested that “piracy is our only option.” In other words, they believe that when one’s relatives come to seize control of one’s ancestral estate and fortune, there is little point in pursuing honest means of making a living.

- If a quotation is longer than three to five lines, more or less, it is best to format it as a block quote. (Explain.)

- If you alter the quotation at all, it is important for the sake of academic honesty to make it clear to the reader you are doing so. The three most common ways are:

o Ellipses. If you leave something out of a quotation, indicate you have done

so with an ellipsis—three dots. “He is a most elegant gentleman … and delights us all with his refined tastes.” Make sure that leaving out the part of the passage does not alter the meaning of the quote, just makes it more concise. Don’t leave out inconvenient sections or make it look like the author is saying something he’s not.

o Square brackets. Occasionally it can help to clarify a quotation by adding or changing a word, especially if the quotation becomes less clear without the sentences preceding it. In this case, one may add or change a word by encasing the new word in square brackets. “[Mr. Pickwick] found himself in an awkward position.”

o Added emphasis. If you wish to call the reader’s attention to certain words in a quote, you may emphasize them with italics as long as you make it clear to the reader that you have added the italics. “The Canadian government, not the Canadian taxpayer base, is at fault for this madness” (emphasis my own).

When should you quote? (adapted from University of Toronto)

- The focus of your essay should be on your understanding of the topic. If you include too many quotations in your essay, you will crowd out your own ideas. Consider quoting a passage from one of your sources if any of the following conditions holds:

o The language of the passage is particularly elegant or powerful or memorable.

o You wish to confirm the credibility of your argument by enlisting the support of an authority on your topic.

o The passage is worthy of further analysis. o You wish to argue with someone else’s position in considerable detail.

- Condition 3 is especially useful in essays for literature courses. - If an argument or a factual account from one of your sources is particularly

relevant to your paper but does not deserve to be quoted verbatim, consider: o paraphrasing the passage if you wish to convey the points in the passage

at roughly the same level of detail as in the original o summarizing the relevant passage if you wish to sketch only the most

essential points in the passage Other considerations for CMS papers:

- Cover pages (explain the information that needs to be included, and the order it falls in)

- Page headers/numbering (in CMS, we use only page numbers in the header and nothing else, unless asked specifically to do so). Page number begins AFTER the cover page

- Bibliographies are formatted the same way as in your annotated bibliography, but without the commentary on the courses—just include the citation. Make sure it is on a different page than the rest of the essay, and title it “Bibliography” or

“Works Cited” As you continue writing your research paper, think of it as an argumentative essay with an emphasis on providing evidence from sources. You already know how to write such an essay—you are just adding on an extra layer of credibility. Assignment Complete the research paper you began to prepare last week. You should use most of the sources from your annotated bibliography at least once, though it is all right to have a slightly different bibliography. There should be at least three to five sources in the bibliography. Make a strong argument backing up your thesis that relies on evidence gathered from your research. Use CMS style throughout, including a cover page, page numbers, footnotes, and bibliography. Your essay should be at least five paragraphs long. Develop each paragraph properly. Remember what you have learned about introductions, body paragraphs, conclusions, transitions, and topic sentences. Use at least one quotation in your essay—make sure to introduce it and connect it to your work. Be careful to avoid plagiarism. Cite where you got your information from, even if it is in your own words, unless it is fairly common knowledge.