If your instructions say to provide page numbers for what you wrote or for sections of it

Background

Experts and How Quickly They Will Know If You Are Faking

For the rest of your life, you will write and talk to experts or you will be trying to become an expert. Experts will know if you are faking content because:

1.     With upper level professors, they will know the content. If they don’t know, they will have their reputation at risk if they approve your work and you get a job based on that and you fail.

2.     With bosses, they will know the content. If they don’t know, they will have money at risk based on whether your are right

Practical Issues

With citations or with writing when citations are not required, you always want to verify the accuracy of what you have in your head. Whether for academics or business memos, this is what I found safe:

3.     Do what the prof or boss wants regarding citations

4.     But always have citations in your own version of the document. Know that you can prove what you say—and know you have that document when you are getting yelled at 2 weeks later.  

The Purpose of Citation

Citation can be in many formats (covered in the Major Essay instructions), but what matters about citation is not the format. Instead, citation is a tool:

5.     For your being able to think well

6.     For letting others be able to confirm quickly for themselves whether you are right

Citation in The Bedford Handbook

I can show you where Bedford says the purpose is so you or your reader can go “straight to the passage that has been cited.”

 

That won’t happen if you send the reader to:

7.     A range of pages (Not 87-89) – Don’t do it for the kinds of evidence you are providing.

8.     A set of pages (Not 87, 89) – Don’t do it for the kinds of evidence you are providing.

Citation of Facts in Your Own Words or in the Author’s Words

Both MLA and Chicago Manual of Style require citation of both:

9.     Facts in your own words,

10.   Facts in the author’s exact words (a quotation)
Caution:  facts in the author’s exact words also require a pair of quotation marks (“ “) around the author’s owned words or it is plagiarism.

 

American Psychological Association (frequently referred to as APA) does not require citations of facts in your own words. – Caution:  In this course, if you use APA, you must provide citations for facts, not just quotations.

 

Requirements in This Course

1.     Provide the exact page number for each fact (such as page 89)

-       Not a range of pages (Not 87-89)

-       Not a set of pages (Not 87, 89)

2.     Cite both:

·         Facts in your own words,

·         Facts in the author’s exact words (a quotation)

 

FYI: Regardless of the format, citation goes immediately after a fact. If you have several facts together from the same page, you only need to cite one time, and that is after the last fact from that page.

 

If Your Instructions Say Provide Page Numbers

If you wrote what is in the box, you will be asked to give page numbers

 

Sentence 1- Body of your paper. Sentence 2- Body of your paper. Sentence3- Body of your paper. Sentence 4- Body of your paper. Sentence 5- Body of your paper. Sentence 6- Body of your paper. . Sentence 7- Body of your paper. Sentence 8-- Body of your paper. Sentence 9- Body of your paper.

 

 

You figure out the content was from:

1.     For Sentence 1 and 2 from page 89

2.     For Sentence 3 from page 88—but now that you check you realize the source says the opposite to what you said

3.     For Sentence 4 from page 100

4.     For Sentence 5 from 101

5.     For Sentence 6 from page 100

6.     For Sentences 7, 8, and 9 from page 135

 

Notice where you stick the page numbers and that you write (Can’t find) after Sentence 3

 

Sentence 1- Body of your paper. Sentence 2- Body of your paper (p. 89). Sentence3- Body of your paper (Can’t find.) Sentence 4- Body of your paper (p. 100). Sentence 5- Body of your paper (p. 101). Sentence 6- Body of your paper. (p. 100). Sentence 7- Body of your paper. Sentence 8- Body of your paper. Sentence 9- Body of your paper (p. 135).

 

 

 

 

 

 

WCJC Department:

History – Dr. Bibus

Contact Information:

281.239.1577 or bibusc@wcjc.edu

Last Updated:

2014

WCJC Home:

http://www.wcjc.edu/