Using Sources NARRATOR: Today we're talking about using sources. Imagine that your sister walked into the room and announced, "A horse, a horse! My kingdom for a horse!" and then left the room, her words just hanging there with no explanation. It might be a little confusing, right? Now imagine your sister is on the phone and says, "My favorite part of the play was when King Richard said, 'A horse, a horse! My kingdom for a horse!" It would make a little more sense, right? In the first example we had a quote, but in the second example we had context. We all know that a quote is an exact representation of someone else's words. But did you know that when you quote someone, you have to give that person credit? That's called citing. When you quote in a paper, the quotes must be integrated so that there is context, and the reader understands why the quote is important. Building a good quote isn't difficult. You need three main elements. An introductory phrase or clause-- sometimes we call this a lead-in. The quote in quotation marks-- this mean the exact words. And the citation-- this is important too. You have to say where you found the quote. Here's an example. Of one of the most misquoted lines from a poem is "Water water, everywhere, but not a drop to drink." It's supposed to be "Water, water, everywhere, nor any drop to drink," which was written by Coleridge. Now, let's say your sister is on the phone and telling someone about a place she saw. But instead of quoting from the play she says, "I really liked the part of the play where King Richard talks about giving up his kingdom for a horse." Instead of using a direct quote, your sister has done what most people do when they speak. She's paraphrased. Paraphrasing is putting someone else's ideas in your own words, and it needs to be cited. So let's talk more about citing sources. The best thing to do when citing a source is to figure out who the author is. The best thing to do when citing a source is to figure out who the author is, then identify where you found the quote. What was the name of the book or the poem or the article? If you're using an article from a magazine or a poem in a book, you need to know both titles. Next, you need the city where it was published, the publishing company, and the date where the piece was published. You also need to say how it was published. Like, was it published online or printed in a book? And finally, you need to know when you found the source. This is something you really only need for things you found online, since online sources can change and print sources can't. When you have all the right information, you can make a works cited page. A works cited page is what you have at the end of your paper. It's a list of sources you use so that a person reading your paper can find more information. They're pretty easy to create. You just put all the information you've collected in order, like this. Author's name, title, city of publication, publisher, year, type of publication. When you're done, it looks like this. If you have something you've found online, you delete the city-- because there isn't a city, since it's published on the worldwide web-- and you add the date you found the source. It looks like this. Once you have a list of sources, put the sources in alphabetical order. If there are several sources by the same author, use the titles and put those in alphabetical order. When you're finished, it looks like this. Once your list is in order, it's a lot easier to figure out what to put in the parenthetical citations. A parenthetical citation is a citation found in parentheses at the end of a sentence. Put the last name of the author and the page number. Easy. If you've got more than one piece by the same author, put the last name of the author and the first name of the title. Super easy. Let's take this citation as an example. We easily put the name Coleridge in parentheses, along with the page number where we found the poem. Or let's take an author we've used more than once. We use the name Poe and the first word of the title, "Alone." There wasn't a page number because I found this source online, so I don't need to put a page number. So what have we learned? A quote is an exact representation of someone else's words. A paraphrase is putting someone else's ideas in your own words. A parenthetical citation is a citation we find in parentheses at the end of a sentence. A works cited page is a list of sources found at the end of the paper. And any time we use someone else's words or ideas, we have to give that person credit. For more information about writing or other English topics, check us out on YouTube or Youku. CHOIR: (SINGING) Created using PowToon.