When you write a research paper, you use information and facts from a variety of resources to support your own ideas or to help you develop new ones. Books, articles, videos, interviews, and Web sites are some examples of sources you might use.
Citing these sources of information in your work is essential because:
This three-min. video from The Harness Library illustrates why it's important for you to cite your sources. Watch, Learn, and Enjoy!
Whether you mean to do it or not, plagiarism is stealing. This brief video from Eastern Gateway Community College explains plagiarism and shows you ways you can avoid it.
Plagiarism does not apply only to written works; it also applies to images, graphics, charts, music, videos, etc. that you use in your research.
This form of Academic dishonesty applies to individual as well as group work and may result in partial credit, no credit, or failure of the exam or assignment. In addition, your instructor may forward the situation to the Office of Student Success for further disciplinary action such as suspension or removal from the course or college in accordance with the YCCD Board Policy and Procedure 5500: Standards of Student Conduct.
It's important to make sure you collect all the information you need to cite a source as you gather your information so that you won't need to look it up again, so:
Cite all outside sources you use in your research paper! Citing is required for sources you:
Quote word-for-word,
Paraphrase (rewrite using your own words), and
Summarize (rewrite the main concept or idea in your own words).
As you explore your topic, you'll discover and read information from many different sources. With each new source, you'll need to decide if you want to use it. To help you make this decision, you'll ask yourself questions about the source like:
Who is the author of this source? What is the title of the source? How was the source published? Where did I find this source? When was the source published? |
Each of these elements (author, title, publisher, location, publication date) will become part of your citation. As you work, you'll want to keep track of each of these elements so that creating your citations will be easier.