Working with Words from a Source

 

Two Opening Helpful Hints: 

 

  • Quote only when something is aptly said or where your ideas need authoritative support.  Otherwise, use your own words and ideas that your research and discovery generated.
  • Always try to keep quotations as short as possible.

 

Using Words from a Source in Various Ways:

 

First, please consider the following sample passage from Page 67 of the book Primitive Notions by Doris Allen.  This will be our practice source. (I have numbered the sentences for easy reference later.):

 

(1) For many hundreds of years, men believed that the earth was flat.  (2) There was at least one good reason why they believed this: the evidence of the senses seemed conclusive.  (3) The world (allowing, of course, for mountains and valleys) seemed indeed flat.  (4) There were many level fields and plains; the surfaces of lakes, of calm seas, and of any standing water were perfectly level; from the top of any hill, the earth appeared to stretch out flat before the beholder.  (5) Was it not obvious then that it was the nature of the earth to be flat and the sky to be curved? (6) Furthermore, the clear line of the horizon suggested that if one went far enough, one would most likely come to the end of the earth and fall off.  (7) Perhaps some imaginative people thought of the edge of the earth as a cliff with an infinite abyss below—a place to avoid.  (8) Such thoughts led naturally to the view of the earth as a large, flat object, like a solid wheel, or even perhaps a platter, so it was difficult to imagine the earth as having any other shape.  (9) Nothing visible gave the least indication that the earth might be spherical.  (10) To these early humans, the evidence of the senses was undoubtedly reliable, so that it was taken for granted that the earth was really flat.

 

Ø      The Works Cited page entry would look like this:

 

Allen, Doris. Primitive Notions. New York: Warner Books, 1986: 47.

Using ellipses

 

Ø      To shorten a quotation, use ellipses (three spaced periods (. . .), also called an “ellipsis mark”).  Ellipses indicate missing words.  Let’s assume I want to shorten Sentence 10 from the above passage.  Here’s how:

 

Original Sentence 10:

 

“To these early humans, the evidence of the senses was undoubtedly reliable, so that it was taken for granted that the earth was really flat.”

 

My Shortened Version:

 

 “To these early humans . . . it was taken for granted that the earth was really flat” (Allen 47). 

 

Ø      Now let’s assume I want to combine parts of sentences 1 and 8 from the passage: Here’s an example:

 

Original Sentences 1 and 8:

 

“For many hundreds of years, men believed that the earth was flat.” and “Such thoughts led naturally to the view of the earth as a large, flat object, like a solid wheel, or even perhaps a platter, so it was difficult to imagine the earth as having any other shape.”

 

My Combined Version:

 

“For many hundreds of years, men believed that the earth was flat . . . .  Such thoughts led naturally to the view of the earth as a large, flat object . . . , so it was difficult to imagine the earth as having any other shape” (Allen 47).

 

(Note in the example above that the fourth punctuation mark--either the fourth period in the first use or the trailing comma in the second--is not part of the ellipses but rather a part of the sentence’s punctuation.)

 

A paraphrase

 

Ø      Here’s an example of a paraphrase of passage sentences 1, 2, 3 and 4.  Note that in my version I have changed some of the words, but many of the words and particularly the thought come from the source:

 

Original Sentences 1-4:

 

“For many hundreds of years, men believed that the earth was flat.  There was at least one good reason why they believed this: the evidence of the senses seemed conclusive. The world (allowing, of course, for mountains and valleys) seemed indeed flat. There were many level fields and plains; the surfaces of lakes, of calm seas, and of any standing water were perfectly level; from the top of any hill, the earth appeared to stretch out flat before the beholder.”

 

My Paraphrase:

 

For centuries the earth was believed to be flat because human senses seemed to confirm this.  The surfaces of fields, plains, lakes, and seas appeared level.  Viewed from high places the earth appeared to stretch out flat (Allen 47). 

 

(Note that while a paraphrase does not require quotation marks, it does require the parenthetical citation.)

 

A summary

 

Ø       Now for an example of a summary. (Helpful hint: If you are writing sentences about a topic without needing or having the source(s) in front of you, most likely you are writing a summary.  Since this belongs to you, you need not give credit.)

 

My Summary:

 

Originally humans believed the earth was flat which certainly affected their willingness to explore.  They concluded this because everywhere they looked the land stretched out flat in all directions.  The notion of a round earth would need to await more adventurous ocean exploration in subsequent centuries before it would be taken seriously.  As technology advanced, observations that confirmed a round earth increased, leading to the demise of the flat earth notion.

 

See?  The example may have a general idea or two that the passage prompted, but the summary is a synthesis of information from many other sources as well as my own thinking. 

 

Be Comfortable with Quotations

 

Ø      Be sure to mix quotations comfortably with your own words.  Don’t just stick a quotation in the middle of the paragraph. Here are two examples (For more examples, check out pp. 463-464 of your handbook):

 

“Humans believed that it was possible to “come to the end of the world and probably fall off” (Allen 47).

 

According to Allen, “the clear line of the horizon suggested that if one went far enough, one would most likely come to the end of the earth and fall off” which must have been a frightening prospect to wood-be explorers.(47). (Note: since I mentioned the author in the lead-in, I need only give the page number in the parentheses at the end.)

 

 

 

Punctuation notes:

 

  • Periods and commas always belong inside quotation marks.
  • Colons and semicolons always belong outside quotation marks.

 

 

Brackets

 

Ø      An alternate method when using ellipses is to use brackets around the ellipses. I could edit Sentence 6 in the passage this way:

 

“Furthermore, the clear line of the horizon suggested that [. . .] one would most likely come to the end of the earth and fall off” (Allen 47).

 

Ø      Brackets, however, are most commonly used to inject my own words into a quotation.  Try this with Sentence 2.

 

“There was at least one good reason why they [early humans] believed this: the evidence of the senses seemed conclusive” (Allen 47). 

 

    (Note: See how much clearer the sentence IS now with the information I inserted in the brackets?  Please note that these are brackets, not parentheses.)

 

The use of [sic]

 

Ø       “Sic” means “thus.”  Use it when a grammatical/spelling mistake exists in the source’s words you want to quote. (That’s right—since the source’s words are someone else’s property, you do not have the right to correct even spelling!)

 

Let’s assume that a word was misspelled in the passage from Allen’s book.  Perhaps Sentence 5 was printed in the book this way:

 

“Was it not obvious then that it ws the nature of the earth to be flat and the sky to be curved?”

 

(Note that the word “was” is missing the letter “a.”)  Here is how we would be obligated to quote it:

 

“Was it not obvious then that it ws [sic] the nature of the earth to be flat and the sky to be curved?”

 

Let’s now assume that the incorrect word “than” was used in place of the correct word “then” in this sentence.  Here is how our quote would look:

 

“Was it not obvious than [sic] that it was the nature of the earth to be flat and the sky to be curved?” (Allen 47).