Attention
Must Be Paid!
Why
Attribution and Citation are Important to Writing
The
Paraphrase
Short
Quotations or Snippets
How
to List the Works You've Cited
Advice
|
Advice
for Students on Citation
and Scholarship
By
Judy Hunter, Director of the Writing Lab
Revised 3/01
Grinnell
College has sought in various ways to emphasize to its students
the importance of academic honesty. This paper explains the
importance of academic honesty and explores some of its mechanics.
For fuller explanations, see any of the various style manuals.
This essay is also available on the web at
http://www.grinnell.edu/writinglab/CitationGuides/achondiscuss.html
Attention
Must Be Paid!
"Attention
must be paid!" So says Linda Loman about her despairing husband
Willie in Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman (56). Note
that when I use this quotation "Attention must be paid!" I immediately
identify it, telling you who said it and in what context. If
I were addressing a group of dramatists, especially a group
of Arthur Miller enthusiasts, I probably would need no explanation;
I might merely say, "When Linda Loman says, 'Attention must
be paid!' we understand her cry as a plea for respect and recognition."
In either case, since I am using words originally created by
someone else, I have specified the speaker and the situation:
that is, I have attributed the quotation to its author. In addition,
I have cited the source specifically: I note the page number
on which you can find these words, and the list of "Works Cited"
at the end of this document gives specific publication data.
This reference
to the words of Linda Loman exemplifies attribution,
which indicates that an idea comes from somewhere else, and
its more specific cousin, citation, which specifies the
location of that source. As this example reveals, neither is
simple: how you attribute and cite, when you do so, and how
much information you give about your sources are all intimately
connected to your audience and purpose. I will shortly use Linda
Loman's famous admonition -- that attention must be paid --
as a refrain as I explain the bad news, and the good, about
citation and scholarship.
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Penalties
for violating the rules
First,
the bad news. At Grinnell College, as at other colleges and
universities, if you are caught violating the rules of academic
honesty, you will face punishment, as the Student Handbook details
(11- 14). These rules prohibit a wide range of less-than-honest
behaviors, from copying from a source without crediting it,
to faking lab results, to submitting the same paper in more
than one course. The penalties range from failure in some portion
of a course to dismissal from the college.
These rules
are strict for good reasons: academic dishonesty violates the
very purpose of scholarship. This purpose is to develop knowledge,
which happens in a social process through which academics build
it bit by bit. That is, one person makes a discovery and the
next person adds to it -- correcting, expanding, modifying,
and exploring it. For example, one scholar, finding some new
documents relating to the outbreak of the War of 1812, may offer
a new interpretation of the causes. Other scholars, reading
her argument, may then agree, disagree, or modify her view.
They may deem her interpretation misguided, or the documents
unpersuasive, or argue that another cause is more important
than the one she defends. In such a way new knowledge is created,
even about an event of long ago.
For this
cooperative endeavor of scholarship to work, the scholarly community
must be able to keep track of who said what; its members must
trust that scholars indicate clearly and honestly what is theirs
and what is others’. In the example above, those who disagree
with or modify the original scholar’s idea cite her as one of
their sources and then go on to give their analysis. Since in
college you are apprentice scholars, you too must carefully
tell your reader where you have read the words and ideas on
which your own depend.
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Why
Attribution and Citation are
Important to Writing
Here is
the good news. Paying attention to academic honesty will benefit
you because doing so will help you improve your writing. Such
attention requires heeding three important elements of the writing
situation: the writer, the audience, and the text. When you
write an academic essay, you position yourself among a great
many voices and positions that make up particular academic discourses.
When you attribute your sources, you indicate to your audience
who among your sources said what; you can also advise that audience
what you as the writer think about what those sources said.
Your purpose is to give your audience as full an understanding
as possible of what the source said about your topic, and of
how your ideas combine with, link to, play off of, or contradict
those of your sources. Thus, this process of attributing and
citing is embedded in academic writing through the paraphrasing,
conceding, and balancing of viewpoints that constitute this
genre.
An academic
writer puts ideas in perspective; she examines and discovers
relationships among them. For example, note how the following
sentences position ideas in different ways – as an undisputed
claim, a contrast, or the object of evaluation:
Simple
sentence: A said X.
Contrast:
Although A said X, I believe Y.
Object
of Evaluation: While A says X and C says Y, most convincing
is F's view that the last half of X and the third quarter of
Y are true.
In all
these examples the writer, in the course of attributing ideas,
relates them differently to her own. These skeleton sentences
show how attributing ideas helps you convey complex thoughts
precisely and persuasively. Through manipulating such sentences,
you show your reader what someone else thinks and what you think
about that.
In addition,
when you attribute ideas, you indicate to your reader the reliability
of the idea’s source; such indications are especially needed
now that the Internet, a medium allowing anyone to publish ideas,
has become so important. In cyberspace, verifying reliability
is often difficult. Therefore it becomes even more important
that you attribute and evaluate the reliability of ideas for
your readers because in doing so you help your audience evaluate
what you say.
Clearly,
attribution and citation are important in writing. Careful attribution
helps you avoid unsophisticated repetition and offer instead
sophisticated evaluation. For example, if you offer an unattributed
claim such as "The president made a serious error," you give
the reader no help in judging it. By attributing it, you offer
more information: "According to his political opponents, the
president made a serious error." From such an attributed claim,
the reader may give less weight to the claim of error. Further,
you might offer even more information by restructuring that
attributed claim: "While the president's political opponents
claim he made a serious error, the increase in housing stock
that resulted from his action suggests that the policy was,
at least in one important way, a success." In this case, you
include with the attributed claim evidence disputing it. As
these simple examples reveal, in talking about citation we are
talking about writing: about believability, evidence, and persuasion.
Citing sources is not an add-on to writing, but something as
integral as diction, rhythm, or sequence.
Attribution
also helps establish expert authority. When you as a writer
say, "I have read A and B and C and D, who all say some form
of X, and I'm going to adopt a position that includes some of
X but with a new idea attached," you show the reader that you
and your claims are grounded in the literature. As a writer
you will often use sources to establish an authoritative voice,
to move the audience by impressing them, and to render yourself
believable. Citing sources fully and honestly helps you do that.
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Examples
of Citation
I now move
from a generalized discussion of attribution to the specifics
-- the paraphrase, the direct quotation, and the use of ideas.
For the
basis of our citations, I will use a passage from The Tower
and the Bridge: The New Art of Structural Engineering by
David Billington. On page 230, in the chapter "Discipline and
Play: New Vaults in Concrete," Billington presents the following
paragraph as he discusses the relation between theory and practice
in the work of Heinz Isler, who designs thin shell vaults to
serve as the roofs of buildings:
As
we have seen, the general mathematical theory of shells
did little to stimulate design; rather, the construction
of shells stimulated academics to study the theory. Isler
found, as did Candela, that the theories were of little
help; he had to turn to the physical world rather than the
mathematical one. While use of the computer increased between
1955 and 1980, Isler found a method of physical analogies
by which he could develop a scientific theory appropriate
to structural art. His theory is as easy to state as it
is difficult to practice: he found that the laws of nature
could be put directly into the service of society by means
of designs based upon the perhaps startling idea of play.
His is a scientific theory of play, for all the laws of
nature are obeyed. As rules, they are strict but they determine
nothing; and it is through these rules, learned ever more
thoroughly as he plays, that the player discovers moves
that he never before dreamed of.
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The
Paraphrase
A paraphrase
is a close approximation of what a source has said, without
using the exact wording. I will demonstrate various versions
of the paraphrase -- both well done and poorly done. In a good
paraphrase, you seek to convey the essence of the original without
repeating the wording or structure.
Version
1: A Good Paraphrase
Billington
emphasizes the complexity of the process through which Isler
designs, showing how this designer makes discoveries through
the process of play. As Billington describes it, the design
process seems unsystematic, almost random (230).
Note that
here the wording moves away from that of the original. Note
too, that since the paraphrase attributes the ideas to Billington,
the citation at the end need include only the page number; where
the name is not included in the sentence, the ending citation
includes both the author's name and the page number. In the
list of works cited at the end of the paper, sources are listed
alphabetically by last names of their authors.
In contrast,
a bad paraphrase uses words and phrases from the original without
moving away from its phrasing:
Version
2: A Bad Paraphrase
When
Isler designed shells, his scientific theory used physical
analogies and applied them to structural art. He obeyed
the laws of nature, but he learned better as he played;
thus he discovered things he never before dreamed of (Billington
230).
Even though
this passage is attributed properly (and note that, since Billington’s
name is not mentioned in the sentence, it is included in the
citation), it is unsatisfactory as a paraphrase. It repeats
words without quoting them directly; it follows the order and
specifics of the passage; it says the exact same thing at the
same level of generality as the source. Generally, to avoid
too close a paraphrase, you should speak about the text at a
different level of abstraction -- be more general or more specific,
rise above or duck below the level at which the source speaks,
change the order or the focus.
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The
Long Quotation
Next, I
demonstrate how to use a long quotation from the same source.
Note that when a quotation reaches a certain length (some sources
say 22 words; others say four lines), you indent to indicate
it is a quotation, rather than using quotation marks, as for
shorter quotations:
Version
3: A Long Quotation
According
to Billington, even if a designer like Isler knows the physical
laws governing the world, he may still find the process
of design unpredictable. Only play allows these designs
to emerge:
[T]he
laws of nature could be put directly into the service
of society by means of designs based upon the perhaps
startling idea of play. [Isler’s] is a scientific theory
of play, for all the laws of nature are obeyed. As rules,
they are strict but they determine nothing; and it is
through these rules, learned ever more thoroughly as he
plays, that the player discovers moves that he never before
dreamed of. (230)
Note that
with a long quotation from a source, you indent the passage
and use no quotation marks. Note, too, that for a block quotation
in MLA format, the parenthetical citation appears after the
period, followed by no other mark.
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Short
Quotations or Snippets
Sometimes
you will use a series of short quotations, or snippets, to give
the flavor of the cited passage:
Version
4: Snippets
Billington
gives a strong sense of how Isler worked more from practice
than from theory; he emphasizes how Isler used "the perhaps
startling idea of play" to inform himself about the real
world and how it operates as he designs shells. According
to Billington, Isler used "a scientific theory of play"
to "discover . . . moves that he never before dreamed of"
(230).
Note here
the use of ellipses -- three spaced periods -- to indicate an
omission from the last snippet. Even though in this case only
one letter is omitted, the ellipses are necessary because your
reader understands quotation marks to indicate that what is
within them appears exactly as in the source.
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Using
an Idea from a Source
Sometimes
you may take something a source says and move beyond it, using
someone else’s idea as a springboard from which to jump into
your own idea:
Version
5: Using an Idea
Billington’s
description of Isler’s design process as based on science
but using play (230) suggests a method of creation that
may accurately describe the writing process. That is, a
writer, knowing and following the rules of writing and the
traditions of structure and organization, may use playful
experimentation to find surprising new ways to communicate.
Here the
writer adds his or her own ideas to those from the source; the
citation, since it occurs early in the first sentence, indicates
the extent to which the later statements depend on the source;
the rest may be assumed to be original.
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How
to List the Works You've Cited
At the
end of the paper in which these attributions occur, the writer
includes, generally on a separate page, a list of works cited.
Here is how the entry for Billingham’s book would occur in that
alphabetized list.
Works
cited
| Billington,
David P. The Tower and the Bridge: The New Art
|
| |
of Structural
Engineering. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,
1983.
|
In all
these examples of citation I have used the MLA (Modern Language
Association) format. In it, the name of the writer and the page
number appear in the citation, and the reader turns to the list
of works cited to find full information. Other styles of citation
use slightly different formats.
You should
neither make up a format nor use one inappropriate to the discipline
your paper treats. The text by Fulwiler, Hayakawa, and Kupper,
The College Writer's Reference, explains in detail the
formats of the MLA (Modern Language Association), the APA (American
Psychological Association), and the CMS (Chicago Manual of Style).
In addition, it has shorter sections on the formats of the CBE
(The Council of Biology Editors), the ACS (American Chemical
Society) and the AIP (American Institute of Physics). With so
many different formats and so many different kinds of sources
to document, such as books, journal articles, government documents,
portable databases, broadcast interviews, and personal interviews,
do not depend on memory to get the format right. Look it up!
Some professors
will insist you use one specific format, and correctly. Others
will state merely that you should indicate your sources in some
way. Whichever they say, pay close attention and remember the
common thread: they all believe you must let your reader know
when you use the words or ideas of others.
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Other
Instances of Academic Dishonesty
Paying
attention to academic honesty does not involve merely avoiding
errors in paraphrasing or citation. As other examples of possible
problems, you must pay attention to honesty in reporting lab
results: you cannot just add some contrived data points to make
your graph more persuasive. Also, pay attention to following
the limits individual professors set on collaboration: follow
their directions, whether they say you can consult others or
not. Finally, do not use the same paper to fulfill two different
assignments without explicit permission from all the professors
involved. Check your student handbook for further discussion
of possible problems of academic dishonesty.
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Advice
What should
you do to ensure that you pay sufficient attention to academic
honesty? I offer four pieces of advice:
1. Take
notes. When you set out to write a paper, begin with note
taking. Paraphrase your source, moving away from the exact original
wording. If you do copy exact words, be sure to put them in
quotation marks on your note cards. Whatever you do, don't skip
the step of taking notes in your own words.
2. Cite
early. Since, as we have discussed, attribution or citation
is integral to writing, put citations into your first draft;
don't leave them out and "go back and put them in later." It
is often difficult later to remember exactly what specific words
and thoughts need citation.
3. Work
ahead. Avoid panic. Don't leave writing to the last minute;
to document carefully, you need to write more than one draft.
Also, don't sit at the computer surrounded by books. Both writing
habits promote unintentional plagiarism.
4. Ask
questions. Please take your questions to your professor
or consult a member of to the Writing Lab staff. In addition,
read the information in Section 46, "Using Sources" in The
College Writer's Reference; it offers advice about organizing
sources, quoting accurately, paraphrasing effectively, summarizing
concisely, and avoiding plagiarism (338 --347).
In conclusion,
I reiterate Linda Loman’s cry: "Attention must be paid!" Pay
attention to the issue of academic honesty. Pay attention to
your sources; when you are reading, pay attention to and learn
from how academic writers cite and use sources. Pay attention
to the process of writing and make attention to attribution
and citation an integral part of that process. All this attention
can help you avoid lapses in academic honesty. In addition,
by focusing your attention on how academics use citation and
attribution to position themselves in the midst of others’ ideas,
you will discover the joy of moving adeptly within the fascinating
realms of academic inquiry.
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Works
Cited
| Billington,
David. P. The Tower and the Bridge: The New Art
|
| |
of
Structural Engineering. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press, 1983. |
| |
|
| Fulwiler,
Toby, Alan R. Hayakawa, and Cheryl Kupper. The
|
| |
College
Writer’s Reference. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice
Hall, 1996. |
| |
|
| Miller,
Arthur. Death of a Salesman: Text and Criticism.
Gerald |
| |
C.
Weales, ed. New York: Penguin Books, 1981.
|
|
