Engaging with Sources
"Citation is [not] merely a matter of following directions. It turns out it's more complicated than that." (Harrington, in Bad Ideas about Writing)
Think of sources as people you're having a conversation with.
There are a number of reasons you'll pull what others have said into your essay. When writing research papers in the social sciences and humanities, imagine that you're facilitating a conversation with and between authors.
How?
Academic citation is highly stylized and there's a lot of pressure to get it right, but we actually practice the fundamental skills of describing and reporting on what others have said all the time in our day-to-day lives. Consider this transcript of a conversation overheard at a grocery store:
Customer: Excuse me, I'm looking for walnuts and it looks like you're all out.
Clerk: Yes, my apologies. My manager says that we've reordered them, but they won't be back in stock until next week. She was saying that there's a supply chain issue.
Look at the citation going on here! We do this all the time! It often works in very similar ways in academic writing. Look at this example:
Domesticated cats of all sorts are phenomenal for their owner's mental health. For example, Alexander shows that cat ownership significantly reduced the stress levels of patients at four nursing homes. His study of pets in nursing homes reveals that cat ownership gives residents a sense of purpose and responsibility in addition to companionship.
Depending on which citation style you're using, you'll add bibliographic details in different ways. OWL @Purdue offers reliable up-to-date style guide advice.
APA: Domesticated cats of all sorts are phenomenal for their owner's mental health. For example, Alexander (2022) shows that cat ownership significantly reduced the stress levels of patients at four nursing homes. His study of pets in nursing homes reveals that cat ownership gives residents a sense of purpose and responsibility in addition to companionship (p. 49).
MLA: Domesticated cats of all sorts are phenomenal for their owner's mental health. For example, David Alexander shows that cat ownership significantly reduced the stress levels of patients at four nursing homes. His study of pets in nursing homes reveals that cat ownership gives residents a sense of purpose and responsibility in addition to companionship (p. 49).
There are a few different ways of reporting what others have said (or written), including:
directly quoting their exact wording
paraphrasing the specifics of what they said
summarizing the central topic or general idea of what they said
Academic writers move in and out of these strategies of reporting what others have said, sometimes in the same sentence!
> Activity: How do academics engage with sources?
Look at the following sample of academic writing from the social sciences. Can you identify all instances of citation and source engagement?
What is Citation?
Academic citation is commonly misunderstood as obscure and difficult to emulate. However, it's just a differently stylized manner of reporting what others have said, which is something that we do in everyday conversation all the time. Think of the last time you reported something that someone else said. Just this afternoon, for example, I told my child's teacher that my child said she's loving being back at school. This is citation. Janet Giltrow explains that citation is "the attribution of a statement to another speaker" (32). She reports that it allows academic writers to "take a position in relation to other voices; identify as a member of a group; construct knowledge; take a turn in the conversation" (41). Giltrow shows lists of citations as the end of academic sentences, like this: (Animal, 2019; Crossing, 2020; Island, 2020). She does this to explain how to spotlight a "chorus" of speakers singing about the same issue (127). However, she emphasizes above all the importance of summary--from tiny to extensive--as academic writers "arrange [voices] and take their turn" in "scholarly conversation" (144). Giltrow reveals that citation involves much more than formatting your works cited; it's about telling the story of others speaking and of becoming a part of it. If you think about it, you have lots of experience doing this in everyday life. Now you just have to learn how to do it as an academic writer.
Works Cited
Giltrow, Janet. Academic Writing (3rd ed.). Broadview Press, 2002.
When should you conduct research to find sources?
Expect to conduct research for different reasons throughout the process of writing an essay
Brainstorming - Conduct research to learn about an unfamiliar topic (use Wikipedia!) and how a topic is being studied (use Google Scholar!)
Narrowing your topic - Conduct research to find a specific focus or way into the topic – identify key concepts and keywords related to your topic
Developing your argument - Conduct research to find disagreements and gaps in what others have said about a topic and to position yourself in response
Refining your argument - Conduct research to ensure that your argument takes into account the most relevant evidence for and against your position
Make use of your library's workshops and resources for conducting research!
While you can no longer invent the wheel, you can still be what academics call "original"
Your intellectual contributions are a result of:
Comparing & contrasting what others have said or found
Responding to what others have said or found (is their claim reasonable? Practical? Accurate? Logical?)
Pointing to important concerns that may not be well researched
Compiling your own primary data (conducting a survey, case study, or close reading)