Integrating Sources
This guide is intended to help you, the student, incorporate sources
into your paper. If you have additional questions about using sources, contact your class
instructor, the
Writer's Workshop or
Ask a Librarian.
Why use sources?
The use of sources is what separates a research paper from other kinds of writing. Your paper
needs documentation and evidence, but it also needs to take part in the conversation that other
researchers are having about the topic. Acknowledging sources is a way of helping your reader hear
and understand this conversation. It should also help readers recognize how your voice, as student,
writer, and researcher, differs from the rest.
How to use sources
There are three main ways of incorporating sources into your paper:
-
Quote - This method should be used the least, but remember that any time you use
the exact wording found in a source it needs to be "quoted," like that. Use only when the source
has written something in an interesting/distinctive way that you can't live up to with your own
words.
-
Paraphrase - Putting an excerpt from a source in your own words, rephrasing but
not shortening it.
-
Summarize - Boiling an excerpt down to its essential points, like describing an
entire book in one or two sentences.
Tips for quoting, paraphrasing, and summarizing:
- Remember that
all three methods require a citation! See our
Citation
Styles page for more on how to do this.
- Limit block quotes (long, direct quotations from a source) as much as possible.
- Don't do this: "A quotation from a source without any explanation." It's called a dropped
quote, it just sits in a paragraph on its own. Always explain where a quotation is from and why
it's interesting. Analyze its language and explain its relevance to the research question you are
pursuing.
- Introducing and commenting on every quotation, paraphrase, and summary makes it easier to
distinguish your voice from the source's.
- Summaries are handy when you need to explain a lot of sources in a small space, to help the
reader understand the background of your topic. Choose your words carefully to emphasize the most
relevant aspects of longer passages.
Where to get more help
Top of Page
University Library