Citing Sources
Every time you use information or ideas that are not your own, you must cite your source.
There are three different ways to use someone else's ideas: quoting, paraphrasing, and summarizing. Quoting When you want to use their exact words, you must use quotations. ex. When Legos were first invented, they were created as a mistake. In fact, "when the Lego company opened its doors for business in 1932, no Legos were made there - for the simple reason that they hadn't been invented yet" (Wulffson). Paraphrasing When you want to use the same idea, but put in in your own words. ex. I was playing with my sister's Silly Putty yesterday, and wondered, how did Silly Putty come to be? Turns out, Silly Putty was originally created to try and help the natural rubber shortage during World War II. Rubber was needed to make important military equipment (Wulffson). Summarizing When you want to shorten a longer story into just a few words, so you can explain what happened. ex. George Lerner created the toy known as Mr. Potato Head. He couldn't get his kids to stop playing with their food during dinnertime, so he decided to just join them. He gathered old things from around the house and pushed them into a raw potato (Wullffson). |
Remember the following:
1. You must always cite your source if you are using ideas or information that belongs to someone else. 2. After you finish your quote, paraphrase, or summary, put the author's last name in parenthesis. If the authors' last name is unavailable, use the title of the text. 3. The period goes after parenthesis (like this). 4. If you already included the author's name, you do not need to include it again. ex. When explaining how Play-Doh was first made, Don Wulffson said, "Originally, Play-Doh only came in white. There's a good reason for this. You see, Play-Doh didn't start out as a toy. It started out as a product for cleaning wallpaper." In this example, it wasn't necessary to put the author's name in parenthesis at the end because you already told who said the quote. |