Home: Follow the Reader: Senior Seminar in Research Writing (ENG 395): Should I Cite It?

You Don't Need to Cite

Common Knowledge

Facts and general knowledge known to almost everyone and easily located in a variety of sources. Examples: water freezes at 0 degrees Celsius and 32 degrees of Fahrenheit.
Your Own Ideas

This is very important to understand. Your own ideas or observations about a topic are those that come before you have read a book or an article. They can also be your original thoughts after the analysis of the topic in other sources.
Your Own Work

If you created a survey, an interview with questions you designed without the use of other sources, a field guide, work of art, a poem or other original work --this information is your own and does not need to be cited.

Tip

There are 3 ways to use sources: quote, paraphrase, summarize. In parahphrasing you need to change all the original words or phrases to avoid plagiarism.

There are 3 techniques to use sources: introduce it, cite it, list of references.

There are 2 ways of citing: in-text, end notes/footnotes.

There are 2 types of plagiarism: ghost writing, copy & paste

You may test your knowledge of plagiarism in this excellent quiz created by the Indiana University.

You Need to Cite

Other people's words.

If directly quoted, they need to be in quotation marks and source provided. If paraphrased, they need to have source of the original words provided.
Other people's ideas.
Responding to other people's arguments or ideas

You need to cite the original argument/idea you are responding to.
Information located on a website
Information created by a corporation or an organization even if there is no single author provided.

The corporation can also be the author.
Ideas, words, notes, etc. used in a lecture, broadcast, podcast or other media.
Pictures used, video clips, audio clips, and other media.
Comments from blog readers