Sources

In Document
Sources in Document

• One of the most effective strategies technical writers can employ

is to integrate and cite sources into their documents and
presentations.
• Beyond avoiding plagiarism, using sources effectively allows you
to draw on the expertise of others to support your points.
• Using sources effectively also helps the reader understand how
you are situating different findings, ideas, and arguments in
conversation with one another, as well as how you yourself are
participating in that conversation.
 PRIMARY AND
SECONDARY SOURCES
Primary Sources

• They are direct, firsthand sources of information or data.

• These are sources that are fixed in a point in time and typically
do not contain analysis or discussion.
• For example, if you were writing a report about the First
Amendment right to freedom of speech, the text of the First
Amendment in the Bill of Rights would be a primary source.
Primary Sources

Other types of primary sources include the following:

❑ Data sets (your own or from a published source)
❑ Surveys
❑ Interviews
❑ Photographs
❑ Social media posts
❑ Visuals such as schematics or plans
❑ Historical and some government documents
❑ Art & literature, including novels, paintings, musical recordings,
movies, and video games
Secondary Sources

• These discuss, interpret, analyze, consolidate, or otherwise rework

information from primary sources.
• When researching a report about freedom of speech, you might
come across articles discussing legal cases related to First
Amendment rights or editorials that provide commentary on the
First Amendment. These sources would be considered secondary
sources because they are one step removed from the primary
source of information.
Secondary Sources

The following are examples of secondary sources:

❑ Biographies and histories
❑ Journal articles
❑ News commentaries
❑ Blogs
❑ Video essays
CLASSIFYING PRIMARY
AND SECONDARY
SOURCES
Classifying Secondary and Primary

• Your topic, audience, and purpose determine whether you must

use both primary and secondary sources in your document.
• Ask yourself which sources are most likely to provide the
information that will answer your research questions. If you are
writing a research report about reality television shows, you will
need to use some reality shows as a primary source, but
secondary sources, such as a reviewer’s critique, are also
important.
Classifying Secondary and Primary

• If you are writing about the health effects of nicotine, you will
probably want to read the published results of scientific studies,
but secondary sources, such as magazine articles discussing the
outcome of a recent study, may also be helpful.
• Whether a text (document or otherwise) is primary or secondary
depends a lot on content and context.
Classifying Secondary and Primary

• For example, you could conduct an interview with an individual

about their life, and that would be a primary source. If you
interviewed that person about their area of expertise, that might
be considered more of a secondary source. Similarly, a journal
article reporting the results of an original research study may be
a primary source, while a journal article comparing and
analyzing the results of several research studies may be a
secondary source.
Citing Personal Primary Research

• The primary research can take the form of experimental data

gained from lab experiments, results from surveys, or material
from interviews or on-site evaluations.
• In all these scenarios, the research is not yet published prior to
its inclusion in your report, paper, or article. Therefore, you do
not cite it in the same way you would a published source using
parenthetical citations or an entry in a Works Cited or
References page.
Citing Personal Primary Research

• For data acquired through an experiment, survey, or on-site

research, indicate in your text where the information comes
from.
• When specifically referencing data such as a measurement or
results from a survey, you may use signal phrases like you would
for a quotation, summary, or paraphrase. This signaling should
be within the same sentence and near the information itself.
Citing Personal Primary Research

• For example, when referencing the results of an online survey,

you might say one of the following:
✓ 75% of responders to our online survey reported that they were
dissatisfied with the lab’s spectrometer.
✓ Our online survey revealed that 75% of our respondents were
dissatisfied with the lab’s spectrometer.

Notice in the example above that while the writers use a signal
phrase (“our online survey”), they do not provide any citation
information in parentheses. This is because non-published primary
research conducted by the authors usually does not appear in a
bibliography.
Citing Personal Primary Research

• One major exception to this rule is an interview or interpersonal

communication, depending on your citation style.
• In MLA style, personal communication, whether in-person, over
the phone or Zoom, or via an email exchange, is included both in
the Works Cited list and parenthetically in the document.
• In APA style, personal communication is only cited
parenthetically in the document.
Quotations – Direct Quotations

• Direct quotations are portions of a text taken word-for-word and

placed inside of another document. Readers know when an
author is using a direct quote because it is denoted using
quotation marks and an in-text citation.
• Direct quotes should be used sparingly because you want to rely
on your own understanding of material and avoid over-relying
on another’s words.
• Direct quotes should be used when “the author you are quoting
has coined a term unique to her or his research and relevant
within your own paper.” (Purdue Online Writing Lab)
Quotations

For each direct quotation you use, be sure to observe the following
steps:
1. Enclose the quoted material in quotation marks to set it off from
the rest of the text. The exception to this rule is block (or long)
quotes, which require different formatting.
2. Provide a word-for-word reproduction from the author’s original
text. If you need to alter wording or spelling, use an ellipsis or
brackets.
3. Precede each quotation with a clear signal phrase/attribution
tag. If the signal phrase is a complete sentence, you should use a
colon as the punctuation between the signal phrase and the
quotation. Otherwise, a comma is usually best.
Quotations

For each direct quotation you use, be sure to observe the following
steps:
4. Follow each quotation with a parenthetical citation.
5. Clearly interpret or integrate the text into your own argument so
that your readers know how to understand the quotation within the
context of your work. Quotations can’t be left to speak for
themselves.
Quotations
Example:
(MLA) In his seminal work, David Bartholomae argues, “Every time a
student sits down to write for us, he has to invent the university for
the occasion”

Bartholomae uses this strong image to emphasize how important it

is to instructors to understand students’ perceptions of their
audiences.

(APA) In his seminal work, David Bartholomae (1986) argues, “Every

time a student sits down to write for us, he has to invent the
university for the occasion” (p. 4). Bartholomae uses this strong
image to emphasize how important it is to instructors to
understand students’ perceptions of their audiences.
Quotations – Block Quotations

• Longer quoted passages are formatted using the block quote

format. In MLA, you will use this format if the typed quotation is
more than three lines long. In APA, quotations longer than 40
words use this format.
• In both citation styles, the quoted section is indented one half
inch and is not enclosed by quotation marks. A longer signal
phrase (usually a full sentence) precedes the long quotation.
Parenthetical citation is placed at the very end of the quotation,
after any final punctuation.
Quotations – Block Quotations

• MLA: In his seminal work, David Bartholomae illustrates the

thought process that college students must go through when
they write for professors:
Every time a student sits down to write for us, he must invent the
university for the occasion-invent the university, that is, or a
branch of it, like History or Anthropology or Economics or English.
He must learn to speak our language, to speak as we do, to try on
the peculiar ways of knowing, selecting, evaluating, reporting,
concluding, and arguing that define the discourse of our
community.
Quotations – Block Quotations

• Bartholomae uses the strong language of inventing to

emphasize the importance of understanding how students may
find it difficult to join in with unfamiliar academic discourses.
Quotations – Block Quotations
Example:
APA: In his seminal work, David Bartholomae (1986) illustrates the
thought process that college students must go through when they
write for professors:
Every time a student sits down to write for us, he must invent the
university for the occasion--invent the university, that is, or a
branch of it, like History or Anthropology or Economics or English.
He must learn to speak our language, to speak as we do, to try on
the peculiar ways of knowing, selecting, evaluating, reporting,
concluding, and arguing that define the discourse of our
community.
Quotations – Block Quotations
Bartholomae uses the strong language of inventing to emphasize
the importance of understanding how students may find it difficult
to join in with unfamiliar academic discourses.
Modifying Direct Quotations
• Remove a word or add a word to make the quote make sense. If
you make any change to quoted material, it must be formatted
correctly using an ellipsis (...) or brackets ( [ ] ).
• Use these alterations to change the meaning of the quotation.

Example:
Original quote: “To be, or not to be, that is the question.”

Use an ellipsis (…) to indicate omissions in the middle of a quote:

As Hamlet states, “To be, or not to be...is the question.”

Use brackets ([]) to change or add a word to the quote:

As Hamlet states, “To be, or not to be, that is the [essential]
question.”