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Schoolcraft College Writing Fellows

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Drafting the Paper:
Incorporating Sources

Too often, students believe that the only way to incorporate sources into their research papers is to use direct quotes. However, this is often the worse strategy you can use. Direct quotes have their place in a research paper, but summarizing and paraphrasing are generally superior techniques.

Direct Quotes

There are two potential problems of using too many direct quotes in your paper.

    blue bullet used to denote item in a listFirst, they lose their impact if there are two many of them.

    blue bullet used to denote item in a listSecond, a research paper should reflect your own thinking supported by evidence. If you have too many direct quotes, your contribution is lost.

Don't be afraid to use a direct quote when you need to show an expert's exact thoughts, give historical flavor, or it would be impossible to paraphrase the quote because it is too short.

Paraphrasing

Paraphrasing is putting someone else's writing into your own words. If you are tempted to put a direct quote into your paper, try to paraphrase it. If the paraphrase works just as well, don't quote.

Summarizing

Longer passages of an article can be summarized in one or two sentences. To learn more about how to summarize, please consult Writing Fellows Handout #006 (Writing Summaries or Writing Fellows Worksheet #004 (Learning to Summarize an Article).

References and Resources

If you are aware of a resource that should be included on this page, please contact us at fellows@schoolcraft.edu.


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Draft Your Paper
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Writing the Conclusion


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Schoolcraft College Writing Fellows
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Livonia, MI 48152
734-462-4400 (ext. 5292)
fellows@schoolcraft.edu
Writing Fellows is one of the services provided by the Learning Assistance Center.
For more information about other services provided by the Learning Assistance Center, go to the LAC Home Page or call (734) 462-4436
This page was last updated on January 12, 2006
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