Transcript keimyungadams.pbworks.com

Surviving KAC – Week 7 / 8
Citation
RESEARCHING & CITATION
Keimyung Adams College – April 2010
Topics

Why Cite?

Plagiarism

Research Strategies

Citation Standards

In-Text Citation

Lists of References

Summary & Practice
Why Cite? 1
Throughout your high school years, you may have done some original writing or
some short essays. But these were all your thoughts alone. In the academic and
professional world you will be entering, you will be informing people or
persuading them about difficult or complex issues. Your arguments will be far
more convincing if you have textual support from other experts in your field. This
is what citation is about: using what other experts have written to support or
inform your own arguments.
Why Cite? 2
A special note:
Don’t Overdo It!
One matter that should be clear before we begin: in academic and
professional writing, the majority of the paper should be your work, and a
minority should be cited text. Do not make your entire paper a string of
quotations, with only a few of your sentences connecting them together. This
sort of paper is worthless to the reader. He or she can read those books.
The reader is reading your paper to see what you have to say that is new
or helps to explain or understand the subject. Quotes are meant to help.
Why Cite? 3
A special note:
Don’t Trust
Everything in Print!
A second matter is who to cite. It’s a big, scary world! Don’t trust
everything you read in print. In particular:
1. Be careful of the expert who’s not an expert in the field you’re
researching.
Toward the end of his life, Sigmund Freud wrote several books on
religion. Freud was a psychologist and not a theologian. Similarly, if
Rupert Murdoch writes on business he is likely a good authority. If he
writes on soccer or cooking he has no special credibility.
Why Cite? 4
A special note:
Don’t Trust
Everything in Print!
2.
3.
Be careful about sources with an obvious bias. Government websites
from totalitarian countries, or organizations with a political, religious, or
social activism mission aren’t necessarily untrustworthy, but should be
considered carefully and balanced with other sources.
Be very careful about internet sources. Any nutbar can write his or her
own blog or web page without any evidence or proof. Check if the
website is made by a professional or academic organization. Ask your
professor about using community-edited sites such as Wikipedia.
Plagiarism 1
Plagiarism is the “use or close imitation of the language and thoughts of
another author and the representation of them as one’s own original work.” This
definition is not mine; it was written in the 1995 Random House Compact
Unabridged Dictionary. But I am not guilty of plagiarism myself as I’ve used
quotation marks (“”) to indicate that the text wasn’t written by me, and I’ve told
you where it’s from.
Plagiarism is not using other people’s words or text in your paper. Plagiarism is
using other people’s words or text and not telling your reader that you have
done so.
Plagiarism 2
Is it serious?
Without being offensive, plagiarism is taken much more seriously in the west
than in Asian countries. Using other people’s text without attribution in speeches,
papers, or theses, if caught, typically results in firings, expulsion from
universities, and cancelation of degrees. As a professor or journalist, it is
considered a betrayal of trust that can instantly end careers permanently.
In 1988, now Vice-President Joe Biden had to cancel his campaign to be US
president when a plagiarism charge he had from 1965 as a freshman in legal
school was exposed!
Plagiarism 3
Avoiding Plagiarism
Most students don’t choose to plagiarize, but feel that they’re under pressure
or that it’s no big deal. When they are expelled, they discover that it is a big
deal. Do you want the doctor who is operating on your heart, or the engineer
who designed the bridge you are driving on, to have plagiarized his or her
papers, and said ‘it’s no big deal’ rather than being skilled in their subjects?
But many students do plagiarize innocently. How can we tell so that we can
avoid it?
• Go: Handout 1: Recognizing Plagiarism
Research Strategies 1
Research strategies simply mean the skills that you build for the following
tasks:
A) Finding books, magazines, or websites
B) Scanning them for useful information or quotations
C) Taking the material from the source and putting it in your paper
This is a little like teaching you to dance. There isn’t one correct way to
research. Probably the best way is to have a clear idea of what
information you need, and to develop a system of organizing sources
which matches your multiple intelligences or learning styles. Use note
cards, highlighters, charts, or whatever helps to keep your sources and
quotations ready so that you can enter them into your text.
Research Strategies 2
Advice: Do not get all your sources from Naver! That is lazy research and
it will probably not lead you to serious or professional sources. Learn to
use an academic search engine such as the library’s.
Unless your subject is very new,
you will probably not be taken
seriously by your reader if you
only have internet sources. The
future may be different, but for
now there is no substitute for
searching for and reading real
books in a library!
Citation Standards 1
The History of Citation
In the west, ancient scholars simply
explained within the text where their source
came from. But developments such as
printing in Europe allowed more precision.
Early modern books had notes and sources
listed in the margins, such as in this example
from 1605. True footnotes appeared around
1710 in England and bibliographies (works
cited lists) by 1900, but there were no
uniform standards for authors or printers.
See: “The Rhetoric of Citation Systems, Part I: The
Development of Annotation Structures from the Renaissance to
1900” (Robert J. Connors, Rhetoric Review, 17:1,1998)
Citation Standards 2
Modern Citation
The first modern citation system in the west
came with the Chicago Manual of Style in
1906. Other popular systems are the
Modern Language Association of America
style (MLA), which is mostly used in the
humanities, and the American Psychological
Association style (APA), which is favored in
the social sciences. The KAC program permits
MLA but encourages the APA system in
student thesis projects.
In-Text Citation
In-Text Citation
In-text citation in APA format is really quite simple. List A) the author’s last name,
B) the year the source was made, and C) the page number. If it’s a website, you
can omit the page number if necessary.
Despite the growing numbers of overweight Americans, many health care
providers still “remain either in ignorance or outright denial about the health
danger to the poor and the young” (Nemseh, 2005, p. 5).
You can also say the author’s name in the text:
Nemseh (2005) states that many providers still “remain either in ignorance or
outright denial about the health danger to the poor and the young” (p. 5).
List of References
A list of references
comes at the end of
your paper. It lists,
alphabetically, all of
the sources you used.
The format differs
depending on whether
the source is a book,
magazine, website, or
other types of media,
such as interviews or
films.
List of References
Goldstein, J. E. (1960). In a word. New York: Harper
& Row.
Morawski, T. (2000). Social psychology a century
ago. American Psychologist, 55, 427-431.
Steuer, R. J., Jr. (1999). Keeping an open mind. In
Psychology of intelligence analysis (chap. 6).
Retrieved July 7, 2009, from
http://www.cia.gov/csi/books/art9.html
Conclusion




Using secondary sources and quotations in your paper can
make your arguments stronger and more credible to the
reader if done properly. But be careful to:
A. Use reliable sources
B. Always credit what you used!
C. Use the proper typographical format
Go:
Practice taking information from the two sample articles on
the worksheet. In pairs or groups, quote from the articles
onto a new sheet of paper.