Writing With Sources...

Giving Credit and Evidence to our Arguments

Opening Brainstorm

For you, what factors determine whether using a source is a good or bad move?
When can using information for your research help or hurt your argument? (Apply to your own background, interests, or fields)
Take a look at the HCC Library slides resource: Evaluating Sources is as easy as C.R.A.P. - What do the acronyms stand for and how can this better help you identify useful sources from ineffective ones?

Giving Credit to others...

Research Evidence

But first, Getting Started... Source Tutorial

CMU Library Database (Tips and Pointers)

What are your keywords? (keywords are your search terms, what you indicate that you are looking for either in small or large concepts)
Are you using Advanced Search filters? Subject terms?
Are you filtering to peer-reviewed or full text access? The library can get you access to articles and books they don't have through Interlibrary loan; sometimes you can find the same thing through Google Scholar as well.
What about the date of publication? Does that help filter your content more?
Are you using a recommended database for your topic (e.g. Education Full Text; Business Source Elite)

Activity Session - Finding Sources to Use

Go back to our Professional Debate Resource Page and access the Worksheet at the bottom (Week 10 in Canvas) to access our in-class resources.

Step 1: What is your Topic that needs research evidence...

Step 2: How will find the sources you need to support your writing?

Step 3: What ways will you bring the sources into your writing?

Opening Kickstarter - What I know about using sources...

Once you have a topic for research, you start seeing what conversations are going on within scholarly, popular, or other online circles. You should be thinking about types of sources, in-text citations, and your works cited pages. Play around with the following Source Evaluation Quiz below, and then consult the Purdue Owl MLA or APA site for examples of how you are citing your sources? Jot down the order of how things should appear in your Works Cited Page.

Research Writing Tips - SUMMARY

Your explanation of the source's details and info where you cite major key concepts and areas. Often this happens when using abstract, introduction, conclusion or other material.
Essential ideas, concepts, across a chapter or longer passages.
Quotes may be used to emphasize key areas of your summary.

Examples:

Grogan finds it important in stressing the concept of "intercommunication" and "networking" as huge aspects of social media which help connect and separate communities which is proven at so many areas of his text (56).
In a study published by the Journal of Medical Science, Nolan defines the key differences between "holistic and homeopathic care" and when a diagnosis needs further attention and care (34).

Research Writing Tips - PARAPHRASES

Information taken from a source but put in your own words or alternate phrasing through the use of synonyms, separating/joining sentence ideas, or aligning with a reader-friendly language.
Puts things a different way while still taking meaning from original.

Examples:

DQ - "The isolation experienced on a globalized level of infrastructure was felt by refugees entering into a static work force in America after the proliferation of the war economy" (Dupree 45).

Paraphrase - Job opportunities weren't good after the war which meant people seeking a new life in America encountered many issues (Dupree 45).

Research Writing Tips - DIRECT QUOTE

Direct Quotes: Information pulled "word for word" directly from your source (passage, voice/video dialogue, important statement)
Don't over-use DQs but be selective of where they show up within your own writing.
Often, you use a DQ to establish a critical message that you will write about and analyze after the quote appears.
Block Quote: 5+ lines, quote appears completed indented, away from your original writing.

Example:

Roland Smith discusses that, "In order to clearly articulate the new legislative practices, a person has to examine the socio-historical problems of people groups dispossessed of their lands" (342). However, this is debated among certain aristocratic landowners who believed in "their right to claim property ownership based on the Dawson Act of 1910" (Parks 45).