Higher education requires proper attribution for the source of quotations, paraphrases,
and summaries in the text of papers—within the body of the paper and in the reference
list. Some reasons for the attribution requirement are to:
1. Distinguish your original work from borrowed work.
2. Assist the reader in locating information for further research.
3. Add authority and context to your own writing.
4. Properly acknowledge the work of others.
1. Distinguish your original work from borrowed
work
Your faculty members are charged with evaluating and certifying genuine
learning outcomes- a combination of knowledge and abilities that you are
expected to acquire in your studies. What did you learn as opposed to what did
you quote or restate? This would be a nearly impossible task without some means
of differentiating between what is our original contribution and what is a quotation,
paraphrase, or summary of someone else's written expression or ideas.
2. Help the reader locate information
Well-written citations lead you to the sources that support or illuminate what you are reading or writing. It is frustrating to read an incomplete citation that does not help you find the original work being referenced. You have a responsibility to your reader, just as other writers have a responsibility to you, when they write or publish, to assemble an accurate list of the works used within your narrative at the end of your paper.
3. Add authority to your own writing
When you provide good in-text citations and references that help the reader
find the original text, you are adding value to your paper! You are pointing
to something that lends authority and credibility to what you wrote.
You are demonstrating that you are not out on a limb or in left field writing
about something without any scholarly basis or facts to support your argument.
You are demonstrating that someone else has written on the same subject with
a similar point of view or that you are willing to consider viewpoints that
may be different from your own. This process lends credibility to your writing.
4. Properly acknowledge the original author's work
All of us are both creators and users of intellectual property, our
academic integrity standards place a high value on recognizing creators
as well as making it clear what is our own original contribution! That
recognition is sort of a reward for the fruit of our labors. Well-written
in-text and bibliographic citations give credit to the creator. This
acknowledgement through documentation is expected in higher education and is
fundamental to the continuous cycle of research.
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