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On Documentation...
In the course of your writings, you will often be called upon
to research or otherwise incorporate someone else's thoughts or
ideas into your own work either directly or indirectly. On such
occasions, it is important that you accurately and properly document
your sources.
There are many different methods of documenting sources, but
the ones you will most frequently be called upon to use in your
academic work are MLA and APA.
Properly citing is not difficult. It is simply a matter of looking
up the format for a particular source and then plugging in the
right information in the correct order, with the appropriate punctuation.
When you use research in your writing, you need to document it
in two ways: internally and externally. Internally means that
you give a parenthetical reference to the source in the body of
the essay. External citations are compiled in either a works cited
or a bibliography where you provide comprehensive publication
information for your sources. For more help with research see
Evaluating Sources.
As you learn and practice integrating quotes in your work, keep
in mind the following guidelines:
- Never allow a quote to replace your own ideas.
- Always use quotes to support, enhance, and explain your own
ideas.
- Never assume a quote is self-explanatory.
- Always set up your quote, introducing the author and work
in the set-up whenever possible.
- Always make an explicit connection between the quote and
your ideas. Make it clear to your reader why the quote is important
enough to be included in your essay. The reader should never
have to make these connections on his own.
- Never, ever use quotes as fillers.
- Always quote accurately.
For example:
Two weeks ago, when I first walked into my composition class,
my whole being was filled with dread. The words "six thousand
graded words" reverberated like a death sentence in my ears.
I've always hated writing. And if the poor grades I've historically
received on my papers are an indicator, I'm not very good at it
either. I'm always desperately trying to reach a minimum word
count, using quotes as filler, and wondering if my modifiers are
dangling. I don't know why I worry though. It's not as if I know
how to undangle them. The point is all the rules scare me and
worrying about them keeps me from focusing on what it is I have
to say. It turns out though that writing is a process and that
there is a difference between the essay and good academic writing.
It also turns out that the way I've been approaching writing,
by its very nature sets me up to fail. I'm learning now that I
need to concentrate first on what I have to say and second
on how I say it. In his book, The Essay, Paul Heilker
writes that the essay "does not try to prove a point.
It does not try to persuade the reader . . . " (89).
This idea completely contradicts what I've always been taught
about writing. Every writing teacher I've ever had has told me
that I need to have a thesis before I start a paper, yet
it isn't until after I've written a paper that I seem to
have any sense of what I'm really trying to say. Scott Russell
Sanders explains that the essay is "a record of the individual
mind at work and play," and that essays are "experiments
in making sense of things" (qtd. in Heilker 89). I'm finding
that essaying gives me the freedom to play with words and ideas
without worrying about form. Indeed, I'm finding that this concept
of essaying may cause me to reevaluate my whole notion of writing.
Work Cited
Heilker, Paul. The Essay. Urbana: NCTE, 1996.
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