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Jim Roth’s Website
Link to the Video
Link to OWL (Purdue's Online Writing Lab)
Working with Words from a Source—APA Style
(click here for MLA
Style)
To begin, always
keep in mind that other writers’ words are their property, so it
is critical to learn how to use these borrowed words accurately and
legally in your writing.
When
should you use another writer’s words?
·
When something
is aptly said. (The
writer really “nailed it.”)
OR
·
When your ideas need
authoritative support. You sense that
your reader might need corroboration.
Otherwise, use your own
words and ideas in your essays.
NOTE: Typically only 20% of an essay is someone else’s
words or ideas. The rest of
the words and ideas come from you.
Please noteEAlways try to keep quotations as short as
possible. We’ll work on ways
to shorten long quotations later.
The
Basics (APA style)
Let’s assume we want to work with the following
article:
The
article’s title is “Diplomacy in the 21st Century,”
written by Susan Barrett.
Let’s also
assume that we found this article in the January 27, 2012 issue of
the magazine Modern Diplomacy and that Barrett’s article
appeared on pages 40 through 46 of the magazine.
The first
thing to do is to create a proper APA references-page entry so we can
include this source on the references page at the end of our
essay.
According
to APA
guidelines, the proper APA references page entry would be
Barrett,
S. (2012, January 27). Diplomacy in the 21st century. Modern
Diplomacy, 40-46.
Please
noteEThe APA References page entries are
double-spaced and, if longer than one line of type, the second and subsequent
lines are indented five spaces (Use a “hanging indent”). In addition, when typing the name
of the article, capitalize only the first word of the title and any
proper nouns within the title; all other words are lower case.
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Now let’s assume
that we want to include the following sentence written by Barrett in
our essay. Let’s also assume
this sentence appeared on page 43 of the magazine.
Here’s the
sentence:
“In order for
diplomacy to be successful, it will have to follow very different
rules from the past.”
The best
way to blend these words with our own is to write a lead-in
or signal phrase. The reason we
need one is if we place the other writer’s words directly into our
essay with no introduction or lead-in, our reader may wonder why
words in quotation marks have suddenly appeared. Please note
that I have written a three or four word lead-in for each example:
Example#1:
I will use the words “According to one expert” as a signal phrase:
According
to one expert, “in order for diplomacy to be successful, it will have
to follow very different rules from the past” (Barrett, 2010, p. 43).
Please noteE that in Example #1 above, I must include both the author’s last name and
page number in the parentheses so that my reader will know which
source to look for on my References page.
Example#2
Now my
signal phrase will be “Barrett
claims that.”
Barrett (2010) claims that “in order for diplomacy to be
successful, it will have to follow very different rules from the
past” (p. 43).
Example#3
Next I will add the signal phrase at the end. My words are “writes Susan Barrett, a noted expert in the field.”
“In order for diplomacy to be successful, it will have
to follow very different rules from the past,” writes Susan Barrett
(2010, p. 43), a noted expert in the field.
Please
noteEin examples 2 and 3, I needed to include only the page
number because it was clear to my readers who the owner of those
words was.
Example#4
I can also put the signal phrase within the quotation: In the example below, my words are
“according to Barrett.”
“In order for
diplomacy to be successful,” according to Barrett (2010), “it will
have to follow very different rules from the past” (p. 43).
Example #5
I can
write a half-and-half sentence using a quotation. In the sentence below, the words “Successful diplomacy must” are mine:
Successful diplomacy must “follow very different rules from the past” (Barrett, 2010, p. 43).
Punctuation
Note: The period and
comma are always placed before the closing quotation mark.
Correct: “I really thought the soap was food.” Bob said, “please find my zebra,”
and then he left.
Using an ellipsis
Knowing how to use an ellipsis
is very useful (and very cool).
First, an ellipsis, also called an “ellipsis mark,” is a
series of three spaced periods: . . . To create one, hit the period
key, then the spacebar, then the period key again, then the spacebar
again, and then the period key one last time. If you use an ellipsis at the end
of a sentence, all you need to do is add another space and period to
end the sentence . . . .
Before we see how an ellipsis
is used, let’s refer again to the first “Please note.”
Please noteE Always try to keep quotations as short as possible.
That’s right: an ellipsis is most
often used to shorten quotations, and I can shorten any quotation as
long as the words I leave out do not change the quotation’s meaning.
As an
example, let’s assume we want to work a bit more with Barrett’s
words. On page 43 of the
magazine, we read . . .
“In order for diplomacy to be successful, it will have
to follow very different rules from the past. We can no longer rely on our
traditional friends and historical enemies to lend us diplomatic
structure. The world today is
fluid, not fixed as it was from the end of World War I to the fall of
communism, so our diplomatic strategies must be far more responsive
than before. Because of this
new paradigm, we will need to create diplomatic structures that are
elastic so they can be adjusted quickly when needed.”
This quotation
is way too long to plop into my essay, so here’s how to shorten
it. Notice I have spliced
together words from the first sentence and the last sentence:
“In order for
diplomacy to be successful . . . we will need to create diplomatic
structures that are elastic so they can be adjusted quickly when
needed” (Barrett, 2010,
p. 43).
In this next
example, I omit the center of one of Barrett’s sentences to make it
leaner:
Barrett (2010)
advises that “the world
today is fluid . . . so our diplomatic strategies must be far more
responsive than before”
(p. 43).
I can also end a
sentence with an ellipsis:
“The world
today is fluid, not fixed as it was from the end of World War I to
the fall of communism . . . ”
(Barrett, 2010, p. 43).
And, yes, I can
begin a sentence with an ellipsis:
Barrett (2010)
claims that “. . . we will
need to create diplomatic structures that are elastic so they can be
adjusted quickly when needed” (p.
43).
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