ShmoopTube

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Citation... (mumbling)

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(mumbling) All right...

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Well, what's that's the first thing you want to do every time your teacher assigns a

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research paper? Groan and throw a temper tantrum? Run and hide? Head

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to the library to get a jump start on the project? Well, most likely, you fall

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into one of those first two student types, so clearly, you're not alone in

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your agony. Research papers don't have to be stomach-churning, though. Leave

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that to roller coasters and new, wild flavors of potato chips. Well, when you know how to

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properly cite research, the process of researching can be easy as pie. Mmm, delicious

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pie... okay, citation. (mumbling)

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(mumble-reading) Uh, this kind of

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citation? The one you get for going 115 in a 15? Yeah, no, don't do that. Bad

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idea. Citation is also about using other people's work in your own research papers.

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That's a real thing, and as long as you do it correctly, it's even legal.

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It's like someone else came up with the brilliant thoughts and you just get to

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use them. Okay, well, sort of like that there are a lot of rules and

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restrictions when it comes to citing other people's work. As I said, you can

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totally use other people's work when writing your own speeches, research

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papers, or even in poetry or other creative writing. The important part

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about using others' work though, is making 100% sure that you're citing it.

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Well, there are three basic methods of citation: quoting, paraphrasing, and/or

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creating your very own argument. Well, quoting is the most basic but probably

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also the one people screw up the most often when you quote a source that means

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not only are you using exactly what's being said in the source itself but

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you're citing or attributing it correctly well pretend you're going to

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write a paper about gorillas you know that they're pretty awesome creatures

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but you don't know exactly where on earth they live so you need a source to

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help fill in this information gap you head to the library or hop online

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whatever and find a great resource from national gorilla quarterly that tells

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you everything you've ever wanted to know about

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gorillas and even a little bit more in the TMI zone okay anyway this source

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gives you the perfect quote that would just really make your research paper pop

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and you'll want to use it all right well what do you do well you use it with the

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correct citation pretend this was the entire passage that you found if you're

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going too far in trying to jungle in La Canada Grill Lisbon spawn in Uganda

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Rwanda traveling across your path all right

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you don't need all of that info it's too much and strays off course from the main

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point you're talking about where the gorillas can be found so you'd pull only

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this sentence from the passage right here eastern lowland gorillas I'm

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spawning again of a wild mountain gorillas in the nation and you'd work it

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into what you've personally written in your research paper you don't want to

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just throw random quotes into your papers to a little amateur mistake

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instead work to frame the quotes you pull from other sources like so there

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are two main kinds of really eastern lowland gorillas found in their borders

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into nations and then see the unquote there yeah see what I did there I set up

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the quote with a sentence that frames it within the context of the paper that way

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my writing and the quote I picked I'll just you know flow together now in order

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to make sure you've correctly cited the information you've got to use quotation

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marks around the info you stick into your papers this rule is a must

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no questions asked if you don't follow it you could be violating copyright laws

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and might be accused of plagiarism ie stealing someone else's work and

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attempting to pass it off as your own it's pretty much the cardinal sin of

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paper writing if you plagiarize even part of a paper and get caught there are

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serious consequences like you might fail the class be kicked out of school you

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could even be sued for copyright infringement or using copyrighted work

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without citing it but it's really easy to avoid all of this scary stress and

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frustration just cite your sources that's literally it you're pretty much

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free to use whatever you want copyright it or not as long as you give the author

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their due credit come on I mean wouldn't we want others to do the same for you if

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you wrote a really awesome book and someone decided to steal parts of it and

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claim that they were the one who wrote it only you'd probably be pretty P owed

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and with good reason it's why

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copyright laws exist and why we make sure to cite our resources in our papers

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alright last step in the quoting process is to cite the source where you've got

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the info going back to our gorilla example let's say you found a quote you

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used in an article written by Sally schmooper on page 97 of national gorilla

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quarterly you're going to need to include what's called an in-text

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citation it's called an in-text citation because it's included in the text of the

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paper itself now sometimes you'll have to do in-text citations and a complete

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list of all of your references at the end of the paper but that's another

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topic for another day back to Sally and the gorillas using the example from

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above here's how we write our in-text citation for Sally schmooper there are

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two main types of gorillas that may be found in a quote in tournaments and

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integrated on a board and you know quote schmooper 97 say we did that notice the

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parenthetical citation comes after the quotation marks since it wasn't part of

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the actual quote then the period comes at the end of the sentences periods tend

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to do and we're done that's it another way of using sources in your paper is

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called era phrasing unlike quoting which is just taking someone else's work

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plopping it into yours and throwing quotation marks around the whole shebang

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paraphrasing is a little different when you paraphrase someone else's work you

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rewrite it in your own words but keep the meaning the same as the original

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imagine you're writing a love poem about the object of your desire your bay when

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you've been dreaming about all your teenage life well you know your writing

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skills are taught not but you want to up the ante by throwing in a reference by

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some seasoned love expert well you find this amazing quote there is no remedy

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for love but to love more the Rove 44 hey that runs that's just back it all

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right well you're swooning you want to paraphrase this so you'll rewrite it I

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know you were going through a rough breakup but you can get over it by

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loving again the row 44 yet now okay well your attempt might not sound quite

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as eloquent as the original but it works as a paraphrase because you kept the

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meaning intact and even though you switched it up and

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puts quote in your own words you've still got to give credit to Thoreau he

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came up with the s and after all it might sound tricky to know

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when to paraphrase something when in doubt cite it if you have any inkling

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that you might be copying someone else's work and not giving them credit just

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cite it you know like Nike the third method of citation is creating your own

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argument you'll use this method when you write argumentative essays in particular

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to present a counterpoint to the point you're trying to make well let's say

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you're arguing that school lunches should always include pizza no matter

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what no arguments there right well not so fast in order to construct a

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compelling argument you've got to consider what the opposition has to say

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in this case the opposition says despite rumors of pizzas its own food group is

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50 no true tomato sauce is not because of those people who know did you dip

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harsh but a decent argument in your paper you're going to create your own

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argument using this info like so pizzas not only delicious but it's good for you

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according to pizza haters and unmanned Tomatoes Oh blah I all this may be true

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there's no law requiring both have nutritional value but it doesn't hurt

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your help all right well see what happened there

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we framed the quote by using our own information about it before the quote we

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mentioned the author's name which is totally legit but we can't leave out the

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page where we got the info so it goes after the quote there are tons of

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specifics when it comes to citations and if you can't remember them all well

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don't sweat it there are references upon references upon references for you to

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use to get all the rules down there are different citation styles depending on

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what discipline you're writing you for liberal arts and humanities courses like

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this one we use something called MLA style MLA stands for Modern Language

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Association the reason for using any sort of citation style at all is because

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it provides a format for writing papers all papers written in the format will be

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consistent and easy for the reader to understand which is important in the

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world of academics where people are reading and writing papers all the time

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well seriously is there anything else almost it's good to get up close and

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personal with the MLA format and it's the one you'll primarily use to write

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your papers in English and language arts courses okay now in a nutshell that's it

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the basics of citation the most important thing to take away from this

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video is that citation is not only important it's necessary

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if you want to write credible papers stay in school and you know generally

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stay out of jail

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