South Kingstown High School Library and Learning Commons: Citation Resources

Summary: 

A summary is a condensed version of information from another source. Summaries usually highlight the main points discussed in a source.

When you summarize:

• Keep your summary brief. Summaries should be much shorter than the original source.
• Stick to just the main points.
• Make sure your summary is in your own words

Paraphrase:

A paraphrase is a restatement of another person's ideas in your own words. 

When you paraphrase, you must:

• Change both the sentence structure and the words used.
• Accurately express the original author's ideas.

Paraphrasing tips:

• Read the original passage a few times to make sure you understand what the author is saying.
• When writing your paraphrase, don't look at the source you are paraphrasing. Use your notes of the author's main points and write sentences that present those ideas in different ways. 
• Avoid switching out words with synonyms. This will create sentences that sound odd!
• When taking notes, try to paraphrase important passages immediately, rather than writing down direct quotes. This can lead to unintentional plagiarism.

Quoting:

Quotes are a word-for-word copy of what another author said.

When you quote:

• Make sure quotes are contained in "quotation marks."
• Make sure you don't over-rely on quotes! Your paper should mostly be your own original ideas. Use quotes only to illustrate your point.
• Use quotes from experts, not from unreliable sources
• If you have to change a word within a quotation, put the changed word in square brackets.

Your research paper ends with a list of all the sources cited in the text of the paper. This is called a Works Cited list.

See an example in the "Sample Paper & Works Cited List" box on this page.

Here are eight quick rules for this list:

1. Start a new page for your Works Cited list (e.g., if your paper is 4 pages long, start your Works Cited list on page 5).
2. Centre the title, Works Cited, at the top of the page and do not bold or underline it. Look for the alignment option in Word:
3. Double-space the list.
4. Start the first line of each citation at the left margin; each subsequent line should be indented (also known as a "hanging indent").
5. Put your list in alphabetical order. Alphabetize the list by the first word in the citation. In most cases, the first word will be the author’s last name. Where the author is unknown, alphabetize by the first word in the title, ignoring the words a, an, the