Incorporating Sources Tip Sheet

Using Sources

*much of this tip sheet has been sourced from Join the Conversation, the Baruch College First-Year Writing Reader.

Once you’ve read sources, taken notes, formed claims, pulled quotes, interpolated data, and come to conclusions about your topic, it’s time to weave it all into the fabric of your argument.

Synthesizing Information. This is where you’ll make all your evidence work for you. Ask how each source works to support your specific claims. Then, look for patterns, themes, and commonalities or differences among your sources. Highlighter tip: mark in blue all the parts across sources that mention point A, mark in green those that have to do with point B, and so on. You are looking for connections across sources, and bringing those connections together to build credibility and support for your claim.

You’ll begin this process by paraphrasing or summarizing each source, so that you understand exactly what they offer and what ideas are essential to your project (this, in essence makes up the “annotation” part of the annotated bibliography).

Remember, your voice should be the strongest in your paper. You are like the conductor of an orchestra, calling upon the various instruments to work together and create a coherent composition. Don’t just move through sources and list which each has to say, perhaps one per paragraph, without putting all these sources in conversation with each other.

When to Quote, Paraphrase, And Summarize

You have a few options when it comes to referring to a source: quotation, paraphrase, and summary. You have to cite all of them the same way: both in text and in the bibliography.

The Baruch Writing Center has excellent resources for this. Please read the following:

(1) Paraphrasing versus quoting; (2) Paraphrasing versus summary; (3) When to summarize, paraphrase, or quote (PDF) ; and finally (4) verbs to consider using when referring to sources (note: write in the present tense in MLA style: “Seth Graves writes that you should write in the present tense…”).

Here’s a simple distillation of its meaning:

1. 1. Quote directly when preserving the exact wording of a source is crucial
      1. When you want to capture language that is especially well-written
      2. When you disagree with an author and want to let them speak for themselves.
      3. When you can’t represent highly technical concepts in your own words
      4. When you want a person with a personal story to speak in their own words
   2. Paraphrase when you want to use an idea, fact, connection, or concept from a source.
      1. When you want to integrate an important idea without interrupting the flow of your prose
      2. When you want to highlight the aspects of a text that have the most relevance to your argument
   3. Summarize when you want to preserve only the main idea of a long passage or the central argument of an entire work.
      1. When you want to compare two or more lengthy arguments
      2. When you want to contextualize your views within a broader conversation (such as when you’re talking about a “dominant conversation”)

Essentially: quote sources for the way they say what they say; paraphrase sources when the way they say what they say doesn’t really matter—such as when presenting data; summarize sources when you want to cover a larger point about the source in a short period of time/space in the paper.

You should be doing all three consistently throughout your paper.

Framing Sources with Signal Words and Introductions

I’m sure you’ve been told before that you shouldn’t begin or end a paragraph with a quotation. The reason for that is that quotations don’t speak for themselves – build a frame around them that speaks for them. Each quote should be preceded by an introduction, and followed by an explanation, in your own words.

Here are some templates for introducing quotations:

X states, “______”
As the journalist _____ puts it, “________”
X herself writes, “______”
In her article, ______, X maintains that “______”
X agrees/ disagrees when she writes, “______”
X complicates the matter further when she writes, “_______”

And here are some templates for explaining a quotation after you insert it into your writing:

Basically, X is arguing that ______.
In other words, X believes that ______.
In saying this, X urges us to consider _______.
The essence of this argument is that ______.

Explaining a quote is an opportunity to show how the quote is relevant to your thesis.

Follow this same process for paraphrase and summary. Here’s an example of “framing” the following paraphrase (“framing” words in blue)

According to noted primatologist Jane Goodall, the more we learn about the nature of nonhuman animals, the more ethical questions we face about their use in the service of humans.

The more we learn about the nature of nonhuman animals, the more ethical questions we face about their use in the service of humans, according to noted primatologist Jane Goodall.

The more we learn about the nature of nonhuman animals, according to noted primatologist Jane Goodall, the more ethical questions we face about their use in the service of humans.

The words in blue tells readers that you’re drawing on the work of Jane Goodall, and that she has credibility (“noted primatologist”).

Here’s an example that uses a quotation from a source in more than one sentence:

“In Job Shift, consultant William Bridges worries about “dejobbing and about what a future shaped by it is going to look like.” Even more worrisome, Bridges argues, is the possibility that “the sense of craft and of professional vocation… will break down under the need to earn a fee” (228).

The words in blue add a sense of urgency to the message Bridges offers. They also suggest that the writers agrees with Bridges’s points. These words–let’s call them “signal verbs”–allows you to characterize the author’s viewpoint as well as your own.

Some Frequently Used Signal Verbs

• • acknowledges
  • admits
  • advises
  • agrees
  • asserts
  • claims
  • concludes
  • concurs
  • confirms
  • criticizes
  • discusses
  • disputes
  • emphasizes
  • expresses
  • hypothesizes
  • observes
  • offers
  • opposes
  • remarks
  • reports
  • reveals
  • states
  • suggests
  • thinks
  • writes
  • etc!!

Citing Sources

Note: It’s always better to cite—cite any ideas you find from other places, too, even if you don’t use any of the source’s words.

This class will use MLA Style as its citation method. Please review this PDF on MLA style from the Baruch Writing Center.

Last name and page number in-text citations can be referred to for more details in the bibliography.

For more information about MLA Style, I highly recommend checking out this page on MLA from a well-known resource called the Purdue OWL (Online Writing Lab from Purdue University).