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Citation Styles: Making Connections

Learn about different citation styles

How to use sources

When using sources in your research, there are three ways in which to incorporate your sources into your work. You can SUMMARIZE, PARAPHRASE, or QUOTE your source. There are two places that you will use citation in an academic paper - The BODY of the paper and on the REFERENCES page.

Regardless of which citation style you use, you'll include in-text citations and a list of the sources you used.

Making Connections

Summarizing

Summarize:

  • Establish the main points from the text
  • Focus on key concepts, not subpoints or supporting details
  • Comprehensive but concise (a 15-page article may be summarized in a paragraph or two)
  • The purpose of the summary is to provide a preview of the material

Paraphrasing

Paraphrase:

  • Differs from a summary
  • Does not condense the material
  • Includes MAIN POINTS and SUPPORTING DETAILS
  • Paraphrase an important sentence or paragraph
  • Translate an author's ideas, point for point, into your own words
  • Shows that the writer understands his or her sources well enough to express them

Paraphrase

Quoting

Quoting presents another's writer's words to support your own ideas.

Four Major Purposes:

  • To support your ideas
  • To preserve special or elegant language
  • To comment on the quotation
  • To distance yourself from the quotation

Tips about Quoting

Tips

Quoting, paraphrasing, summarizing from Purdue OWL

TIPS