All of my classes emphasize the importance of entering into conversation with other people, whether your classmates or published scholars. The most original thinking comes from serious engagement with other people's ideas.
In our academic context, we need to acknowledge the influence of those ideas. Academic citation allows us a kind of formal way of thanking the people who have shaped our thinking. Following the conventions of academic citations has all of these benefits:
- It shows that you care to enter the academic community in a way that demonstrates your respect for other members of that community; a citation demonstrates that you have cared enough to find the source and to acknowledge its importance to your own work.
- It lets a knowledgeable reader understand your ideas in the context of an existing scholarly conversation.
- It allows other people interested in your ideas to consult the same sources you used and do their own thinking about related issues. (For scholars, the citations of a good article are a research gold mine.)
Plagiarism (or academic dishonesty) is taking a passage or passages from another person's discourse,
either word for word or in general, and submitting them as your own. Academic fraud of this kind
violates the trust underlying a productive and enjoyable academic environment. It will also result in substantial punishments that, at Grinnell, are administered by the Committee on Academic Standing.
To draw on other writers but avoid plagiarizing, use the following techniques.
- Direct Quotation: If you use the exact words or a writer
you consulted, you must put their words in quotation marks and tell
your reader where the quotation came from. For this class, use
Chicago NB style as your citation format. If you have any questions about
Chicago NB style, let me know as soon as they arise.
- Indirect Quotation: When you summarize or paraphrase
another writer, use phrases such as "According to ... " or
"As ... argues" to tell your reader what you are doing.
- General Acknowledgment of Indebtedness: When your thinking
has been influenced by a source in a broad way, but you do not have a
specific place to acknowledge that influence, you need to let your
reader know that with wording such as "Much of the following
discussion is based on material found in ...." (For example,
I used this technique to acknowledge a debt on an in-class undergrad
exam, when I had no access to specific wording or page numbers.)
In most cases, however, one of the first two techniques works
better than this one to let your reader know exactly what
influence the cited writer has had on your writing.
- Bibliography: This will allow you to list
the specific sources you have used. We will discuss the format
of the list later. Basically, plagiarism is the academic version
of forgetting to thank someone who has been nice to you. The
consequences, however, are more serious than those of most
lapses in politeness. Consult the Student Handbook for the
official College policy. If you have questions about the meaning
of this statement, see me immediately.
For more detailed information, refer to the
Quotation
and Citation section of Connections.
Section
Page
Page 10.5.6
Page
Section
