This document provides guidance on properly integrating sources into academic writing. It emphasizes introducing quotes with context, commenting on the relevance of quotes, and ensuring the author's own voice remains prominent. Quotes should be trimmed to the most essential parts and introduce new information beyond simple summaries. Sources should be cited respectfully without plagiarizing direct text or ideas from others. The overall message is that writers should curate information from sources and have a conversation that guides the reader, rather than just inserting external quotes and references.

1. Integrating Sources
A Few Exhortations and Reminders
Photo by SteuveFE @Flickr
Click to Advance>>>

2. Don’t do “Hit-and-Run” quotation.
In other words: Integrate, don’t insert.
Photo by SteuveFE @Flickr

3. Think to yourself, “I speak my
part, I refer to another person’s
view, and I provide a citation of
the statement.” With research
papers, you are having a
conversation with an entire room
of people, introducing each
person in turn, and serving as the
moderator.
Envision 174-75
You’re the DJ. You’re the Curator.
by Thomas Hawk @Flickr
You decide what we learn.

4. Introduce the quote
The Sandwich Method>>> or reference.
Give the quote,
reference,
paraphrase, or
summary.
Comment on its
relevance to what
you’re saying.
Photo by bingbing @Flickr (Make sure to cite it.)

5. Introduce, Then Comment.
(Or Have Your Voice Stolen)
Photo by Lasagna Boy @Flickr

6. Introduce
Joe Critic, in his exploration of masculinity in
the music of the Beatles, suggests that . . .

7. Don't just repeat
yourself with the
critic's words:
Ringo Starr was the
toughest Beatle. "Of
all the Beatles,
Ringo Starr was the
toughest" (Critic 43).
Integrate and Enhance
Instead, do something like this: Ringo
was the toughest Beatle. As Joe Critic
says, he was the Beatle most likely to
"fly into a rage and smash something--
often over another Beatle's head" (47).

8. Reduce quoted
material to the best,
most essential bits.
Trim
As Joe Critic suggests in his
exploration of masculinity in the music
of the Beatles, Ringo Starr was "the
band's streetfighting man" (45).

9. Your quoted material should
provide something new and
interesting, beyond summary
and basic information.
Select
Ringo Starr was the lead actor in a 1981
movie called Caveman. New York Times film
critic Janet Maslin noted at the time that
Ringo’s performance is overshadowed by his
special effects co-stars, particularly a likable
dinosaur that “rolls his eyes, waggles his
tongue, pats his tummy and has a very sweet
smile.” Obviously, the film did not make
Ringo the next Cary Grant, but he did end
up marrying lead actress Barbara Bach.

10. YOU should get
the last word.
Comment
Joe Critic suggests in his exploration of masculinity
in the music of the Beatles that Ringo Star was "the
band's streetfighting man" (45). But Critic does not
consider Yoko Ono's punishing left hook and its
affect on the band's music.

11. Good
citation
is about
Respect.
Photo by iboy daniel @Flickr

12. “The term ‘plagiarism’ comes from the word
plagiarius, which literally meant ‘kidnapper.’”
Peter Morgan and Glenn Reynolds,
qtd. in Envision
by What What @Flickr
Don’t Do It.

13. End.
Please note that references to Mr. Starr as a short-tempered street-fighting man are completely false. He’s really a nice guy.