VB037/06 Adapted from: Fowler, Henrey Ramsey; Aaron, Jane E., and Janice Okoomian. The Little, Brown Handbook. 10th ed. New York: Longman. 2007. “Editing and Proofreading.” The Writing Center. UNC College of Arts & Sciences. . “Evaluating Sources: Overview.” Purdue OWL. . Searching for Sources There are numerous possible sources for your writing, yet only few can provide you with a comprehensive list of sources. - Library holds - Scholarly databases - Articles and books Avoid: - reference works and general encyclopedias - Popular articles and newspapers Evaluating Sources While many sources might seem professional or well-written, you have to evaluate them carefully in order to decide whether a given source should be used or not. Relevance: - Is it relevant to my subject? - Is the source appropriately specialized? - Is the source recent? Reliability: - Where does the source come from? - Is the author an expert in the field? - What is the author’s bias? - Is the source fair and reasonable? - Is the source well written? Exercise: Look at the following website (no 1.) and the following article (no. 2) and try to find out what might be problematic about the sources. 1) http://www.mirena-us.com/index.php 2) http://www.greenisthenewred.com/blog/tag/shac-7/ VB037/06 Adapted from: Fowler, Henrey Ramsey; Aaron, Jane E., and Janice Okoomian. The Little, Brown Handbook. 10th ed. New York: Longman. 2007. “Editing and Proofreading.” The Writing Center. UNC College of Arts & Sciences. . “Evaluating Sources: Overview.” Purdue OWL. . Synthesizing Sources - respond to sources - connect sources - heed your own insights - use sources to support your own ideas Using Sources Summary: to condense an idea or argument into a sentence or more using your own words - most useful when you wish to get to the gist of an author’s idea without too much background or evidence. VB037/06 Adapted from: Fowler, Henrey Ramsey; Aaron, Jane E., and Janice Okoomian. The Little, Brown Handbook. 10th ed. New York: Longman. 2007. “Editing and Proofreading.” The Writing Center. UNC College of Arts & Sciences. . “Evaluating Sources: Overview.” Purdue OWL. . Look at the quotation below from Larry Irving, “The Still-Yawning Divide” (Newsweek 64) and the summary following it. Internet access is affecting our everyday lives in important ways, from how we shop to how we define the notion of community. Yet the digital divide between the information haves and have-nots is still very wide, especially between households of high and low income and between whites and minorities. Although competition will continue to drive down the cost of technology, and corporations and educational institutions will continue to bring people online, the market, private enterprise, and local governments cannot seal the divide by themselves. The federal government must assume leadership in ensuring that all Americans have the access and skills they need to participate fully in the digital age. Summary Irving 64 The US government must take the leading role in closing the technology gap between income levels and races/ethnic groups. Paraphrasing: you follow more closely the author’s original presentation of ideas, but at the same time you use your own words: original paraphrase Internet access is affecting our everyday lives in important ways, from how we shop to how we define the notion of community. Yet the digital divide between the information haves and have-nots is still very wide, especially between household of high and low income and between whites and minorities. Significant areas of daily life are changing because of online communication, but many people, particularly the poor and nonwhite, are being left behind by this change. Quoting: to provide an exact quotation of the words used by the original author - provide the page! (you can use [ ] (square brackets), . . . (ellipsis marks)). Exercise 1: Provide a summary of the entire following paragraph AND then paraphrase the first four sentences. VB037/06 Adapted from: Fowler, Henrey Ramsey; Aaron, Jane E., and Janice Okoomian. The Little, Brown Handbook. 10th ed. New York: Longman. 2007. “Editing and Proofreading.” The Writing Center. UNC College of Arts & Sciences. . “Evaluating Sources: Overview.” Purdue OWL. . Federal organizaition [of the United States] has made it possible for the different states to deal with the same problems in many different ways. One consequence of federalism, then, has been that people are treated differently, by law, from state to state. The great strength of this system is that differences from state to state in cultural preferences, moral standards, and levels of wealth can be accommodated. In contrast to a unitary system in which the central government makes all important decisions (as in France), federalism is a powerful arrangement for maximizing regional freedom and autonomy. The great weakness of our federal system, however, is that people in some state sreceive less than the best or the most advanced or the least expensive services and policies that government can offer. The federal dillema does not invite easy solutions, for the costs and benefits of the arrangement have tended to balance out. - Peter k. Eisinger et al., American Politics, page 44 Exercise 2: Combine a paraphrase and direct quotation to state the main idea of the passage below. Most speakers unconsciously duel even during seemingly casual conversations, as can often be ovbserved at social gatherings where they show less concern for for exchanging information with other guests than for asserting their own dominance. Their verbal dueling often employs very subtle weapons like mumbling, a hostile act which defeats the listener’s desire to understand what the speaker claims he is trying to say (but is really not saying because he is mumbling!). Or the verbal dueler may keep talking after someone has passed out of hearing range—which is often an aggressive challenge to the listener to return and acknowledge the dominance of the speaker. - Peter K. Farb, Word Play, page 107 Using Sources in the Text - You will have to modify your writing a little bit in order to accommodate your sources into your paper. A poorly accommodated sentence can be distracting and confusing. - Awkward: One editor disagrees with this view and “a good reporter does not fail to separate opinions from facts” (Lyman 52) - In the following revision the writer adds words to integrate the quotation into her sentence: - Revised: One editor disagrees with this view, maintaining that “a good reporter does not fail to separate opinions from facts” (Lyman 52). Alterations of quotations: You may need to substitute or add some text to the quotation in order to incorporate the source’s words into your own; changes to the original text are usually signaled with brackets. VB037/06 Adapted from: Fowler, Henrey Ramsey; Aaron, Jane E., and Janice Okoomian. The Little, Brown Handbook. 10th ed. New York: Longman. 2007. “Editing and Proofreading.” The Writing Center. UNC College of Arts & Sciences. . “Evaluating Sources: Overview.” Purdue OWL. . Words added: “The tabloids [of England] are a journalistic case study in bad reporting,” claims Lyman (52). Verb form changed: A bad reporter, Lyman implies, is one who “[fails] to separate opinions from facts” (52). [The sentence originally used fail.] Capitalization changed: “[T]o separate opinions from facts” is a goal of good reporting (Lyman 52). Noun instead of pronoun: The reliability of a news organization “depends on [reporters’] trustworthiness,” says Lyman (52). [The sentence originally used their.] Documenting Sources - Plagiarism” (from a Latin word for “kidnapper”) is the presentation of someone else’s ideas or words as your own. Whether deliberate or accidental, plagiarism is a serious offence. Plagiarism can also be using the same phrases without indicating you are using the same phrases! Original: “The character and mentality of the keepers may be of more importance in understanding prisons than the character and mentality of the kept.” Plagiarism: But the character of prison officials (the keepers) is more important in understanding prisons than the character of prisoners (the kept). Revision: According to one critic of the penal system, “The character and mentality of the keepers may be of more importance in understanding prisons than the character and mentality of the kept” (Mitford 9). Works Cited There are numerous ways of listing the works you cite in your writing, therefore the formatting you see below is merely one of the several formats you may use. However, you must provide the source of your argument in a way that clearly identifies the original source. Surname, Name. “Title of the Article.” Book Title (can be also underlined). City of publishing, publishing house. Year of publication. Surname, Name. “Title of the Article.” Website. Website company. Year of publication. (Basic) URL. Mravenec, Ferda. “How I Met Ladybug.” My Life in the Anthill. Mravenecov, Kosmas. 2014. VB037/06 Adapted from: Fowler, Henrey Ramsey; Aaron, Jane E., and Janice Okoomian. The Little, Brown Handbook. 10th ed. New York: Longman. 2007. “Editing and Proofreading.” The Writing Center. UNC College of Arts & Sciences. . “Evaluating Sources: Overview.” Purdue OWL. . Recognizing plagiarism: