Western University

Where Quality Comes First!

Chapter 9: Documenting Sources

Lectured by Mr. Ham Kunthea
E-mail: hamkunthea@yahoo.com

5/28/16

DOCUMENTING SOURCES
Documenting means showing where
you got source information that's not
your own.
Documentation shows the reader what
ideas are yours and what information
and ideas you've taken from a source to
support your point of view.

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WHY DOCUMENT
By correctly documenting, you establish your
credibility as a writer and researcher.
When you don't document correctly, your
ACADEMIC INTEGRITY can be called into
question, because it may seem as though you're
passing off others' ideas as your own.
If you don't document, you could inadvertently
PLAGARIZE. Plagiarism can be caused for
dismissal from college.
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ACADEMIC INTEGRITY
The most common academic integrity problems that
most students encounter are:
relying too heavily on others' information in a
research paper,
relying too heavily on others' words in a
paraphrase or summary,
citing and documenting sources incorrectly, and
relying too heavily on help from other sources.
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WHAT TO DOCUMENT
The basic rule for documentation is: Document
any specific ideas, opinions, and facts that are not
your own. The only thing you don't have to
document is common knowledge.
There are two categories of common knowledge:

information that's known to the general public and

information that is agreed upon by most people in a
professional field

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CAN YOU DOCUMENT TOO MUCH?

If you find yourself needing to document
almost every sentence, then it means you
have not thought enough about your topic to
develop your own ideas.
A paper should not just be a collection of
others' ideas and facts.
Sources should only support or substantiate
your ideas. The rule of thumb is that whenever
you use information from sources you should
comment on the information.
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WHERE TO DOCUMENT
You must identify your sources in two places in
your research paper: at the end, and in your
paper as you use DIRECT QUOTATIONS or
PARAPHRASES and SUMMARIES of ideas
and information from the sources you've
researched.

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PLAGIARISM
Plagiarism means "to steal and use [the ideas and
writings of another] as one's own [American
Heritage Dictionary]
To appropriate passages or ideas from another &
use them as one's own.
Plagiarism is a serious offense within the
academic community.
You plagiarize whether you intend to or not when
you don't credit others' ideas within and at the
end of your paper.
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PLAGIARISM
Remember, even though you may
have rewritten ideas and information
using your own words in a paraphrase
or summary, the ideas and information
are not yours. You must cite your
source.
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Why is documentation important?

It demonstrates your reader you have done
your homework by consulting experts on the
subject you do.
It gives proper credit to those sources.
It informs the readers about the specific
books, articles, or Web sites you used.

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MLA Style
Normal Parenthetical Citation:
American foreign policy has three principal
aims (Lundestad 120).
If the name of the author is mentioned in the
text, the citation includes only the page
number:
As Geir Lundestad reports in The
American "Empire", American foreign policy
has three principal objectives (120).
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APA Style
Normal Parenthetical Citation:
American foreign policy has three principal
aims (Lundestad, 1990, p. 120).
If the name of the author is mentioned in the
text, the citation includes only the date of
publication and page number:
According to Lundestad, "Certain constant
objectives can be found in American foreign
policy" (1990, p. 120).
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Footnotes
The footnote appears at the bottom of the page,
below the text of your paper.
Ex: MLA Style American foreign policy has three
principal aims.1

____________
1
Geir Lundestad, The American "Empire"
(Oxford: Oxford UP, 1990) 120.
Note: APA does not provide a format for footnotes.
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Endnotes
Endnotes are constructed in the same
manner as footnotes. The only difference is
that the endnotes are listed in sequence on
their own page at the end of the paper,
rather than appearing at the bottom of each
page. Your page of endnotes should be titled
"Notes", centered at the top of the page.

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