INTEGRATING SOURCES INTO A PAPER OR PROJECT

 

A research paper requires that you support your thesis with ideas from research by experts. Your task is to synthesize the ideas you have discovered and integrate them into your own writing. Keep in mind that quotations and the ideas of others are not substitutes for your own ideas and analysis.

Avoiding plagiarism

Plagiarism is using someone else’s words or ideas and claiming or implying they are your own. This is not only unethical, it is illegal and can result in serious academic consequences. It is essential that you clarify which words and ideas are yours and which belong to others. You must credit the source of the information you have incorporated into your paper or project, whether it is a direct quotation or a paraphrase or a summary, and you must use proper citation form.Even an idea requires documentation. Use the standard format for notes and in-text citations in keeping with the specific citation style you are required to use (e.g., APA, MLA, Chicago). This guide uses MLA in-text citation style.

Three steps to integrating material into your paper or project (not necessarily in this order):

1. Introduce the material
2. Provide the material (as a quotation, paraphrase, or summary)
3. Comment on it, or explain how it supports your argument

EXAMPLE:

[EXPLAIN] On the other hand, investigators often wrote about tramping -- as opposed to tramps -- as a liberating experience. [INTRODUCE] As the detective Allan Pinkerton wrote, [QUOTE] "No person can ever get a taste of the genuine pleasure of the road and not feel in some reckless way ... that he would like to become some sort of a tramp" (Pinkerton 26). [COMMENT] The other side of laziness was freedom from work (Higbie 564).

 

General rules relating to incorporating source materials:

• Source material should be integrated unobtrusively within your text. Do not simply drop quotations into your essay; blend the quotations and paraphrases into the essay with your own words, making sure the results are grammatically correct.
• Do not use too many quotations or paraphrases; source material should not take over your essay. The content and analysis should be primarily your own, supported and clarified by the quotations and paraphrases.
• Do not “stitch” a series of quotations together because this interrupts the flow of your essay.
• Avoid long quotations unless the content and clarity are particularly well stated.
• Use the ellipsis (…) to indicate words you have omitted and use brackets [ ] to indicate words you have added.

• Include quotations that disagree with your thesis, and use them as a jumping off point to make your counter-argument, e.g., “Although Miller maintains that…, there is much evidence to the contrary.”

 

Three techniques for incorporating source materials:

 

1. QUOTING

Quoting involves incorporating the exact wording from the original source. Enclose direct quotations in quotation marks. Only quote directly when the content and language are particularly significant or memorable:

• : “The 1930s was a period of extreme hardship in the United States” (Lewis 4).
• :  “For a society that puts its emphasis on material success, the real tramp is the naked stuff of failure -- raw-skinned, snaggle-toothed, red-eyed, unshaven, dirty, ragged”  (Seelye 535).

Three ways to incorporate direct quotations:

1. Weave the quotation into a sentence of your own.

According to Photinos, the tramp, as portrayed in literature, was a social problem because he threatened “to blur the distinction between villainous vagrants such as himself and the virtuous but penniless young hero of the story” (7).

2. Quote an entire sentence or sentences.

Boxcar kids, homeless children who took to train hopping, faced many dangers. “There was also the potential hazard of being sucked under a train and crushed to death. From 1929 to 1939, nearly 25,000 train hoppers died. Another 27,000 were injured” (Lewis 8).

3. Include a block quote, if a longer passage (over four sentences) contributes especially valuable information to your essay. Indent  and single space a block quote. Quotation marks are not necessary.

Well, there were endless squabbles about the differences between hoboes, tramps, and bums. One famous quip had it that the hobo works and wanders, the tramp drinks and wanders, and the bum just drinks. More accurately the tramp, the hobo, and the bum represent three historical stages of American homelessness, with the tramp coming first, in the 1870s, and the bum later, in the 1940s and 1950s….The end of the depression in 1878 did not mean the end of tramping (DePastino 27).  

 

2. PARAPHRASING

Paraphrasing is restating a passage in your own words. This approach is a more seamless than using direct quotations, allowing you to blend information with the overall writing style of your essay. To paraphrase, try reading the passage one or two times. Then, without looking at the passage, state the idea in your own words.

• “The nationwide tramp epidemic of the 1870s was attributed in part to the aftermath of the Civil War. Men used to army life would find vagabond life no real hardship” (Spence 6).

 Paraphrase: The rise of tramps in the 1870s was likely a result of men who had served in the army during the Civil War, accustomed to the homeless lifestyle, becoming vagabonds following the war (Spence 6).

 

3. SUMMARIZING

In your own words, state the main points and important ideas covered by the source. Summarizing is probably the least effective method, if you do it to make your paper longer; however, it can be an effective way to condense relevant, but lengthy, information in your paper.

• “That the ranks of tramps and hoboes expanded and contracted with the rise and fall of the national economy is too obvious to require explanation. The depressions of 1873, 1893, and 1929 cast thousands, even millions, adrift, many of them restlessly riding the boxcars from ‘no place in particular to nowhere at all.’ Sociologists have suggested other factors: racial or ethnic discrimination, defects of personality, or crises in personal life“ (Spence 8).
• Tramps and hoboes have been a part of U.S. life on and off over time due to economic depressions, racial and ethnic inequalities, and desperate personal circumstances (Spence 8).

 

Use lead-in phrases to integrate sources, e.g., “According to Smith,…,” “As Jules has noted, …,”; “Dr. Jones claims that….”

Use active verbs, for example,
addresses, acknowledges, analyzes, challenges, contributes, critiques, defines, discovers, disproves, disputes, establishes, evaluates, examines, explains, formulates, identifies, proposes, questions, recommends, reiterates, reports, suggests, thinks, urges, writes

 

For a more in-depth guide on integrating sources, see Michael Harvey’s The Nuts and Bolts of College Writing at http://nutsandbolts.washcoll.edu/quoting.html.