GEOG 140

Introduction to Physical Geography

How to Cite Ideas from Others

(or even yourself!)

It is very important to know how to cite ideas you get from other people. It is important as part of trying to be an ethical person, and it is important for keeping you out of trouble, whether here in school or out in the workaday world. Lawsuits over intellectual property can cost your company a lot (and you your job).

As you heard in lecture (and the GDEP Workshop on Ethics reading, if you followed the link in the syllabus), "science is an organized social method for the production of reliable knowledge, knowledge that is based on facts collected in a repeatable way and related to theory through logic and reason.

"It is social in the sense that all scientists build on the achievements of the people who went before them and report their findings publically so that others can use them in their own work. That is how science grows.

"Critical to the system, then, is acknowledging your debts to the people who have gone before you and being honest in reporting your results and giving people enough details so that they could repeat what you did and get similar results. The whole scientific system is built on trust" (Ambos, Bauer, Behl, and Rodrigue 2002-04). Think how bad you would feel to read your own ideas in someone else's writing and not see your name "up in lights."

"That is why citing the sources of your ideas is so important and why the scientific and, indeed, the entire academic community comes down so harshly on plagiarism" (Ambos, Bauer, Behl, and Rodrigue, 2002-04). You've heard about scientists who "cooked" their data or plagiarized, even a little bit, and were "outted" and lost their jobs and the chance at another scientific position: This is a really big deal in science and, indeed, in any other intellectual or creative endeavor.

"Plagiarism is using someone else's work without acknowledging its source: It is regarded as intellectual theft.

"So, how and when do you cite other folks' work?

"The most obvious occasion is when you use a direct quotation. If you use someone else's exact words, you enclose them in quotation marks and then, after the endquote, list their last name and the year they wrote in parentheses, followed by the page(s) from which you got the quoted material. An example might be "blah, blah, blah" (Smith 1999: 15).

"Then, at the end of your paper, you have a list of your sources, arranged alphabetically by the family name of the author (or of the primary author). You give all the information someone would need to track the source down if they were so inclined . This way, your reader can easily find the source you cited in the text of your paper. Name (s). Year. Name of article. Name of Journal volume number, issue number: pages. Or name(s). Year. Name of Book. City of publisher: Name of publisher" (Ambos, Bauer, Behl, and Rodrigue 2002-04). This is how I did it when I gave you the list of approved articles for your report.

"What about if you paraphrase what the author said, so that it's all in your own words? You still have to cite: It's not a direct quotation, but it IS that person's idea and you found that idea in a specific spot or pages. Because you're not using their words, you don't use quotation marks. But just before the period at the end of the sentence or paragraph you paraphrased, you'd do the (Gomez 2002: 265) bit.

"Okay, now what if you are just sort of summarizing the whole gist of what the authors say? It's not like you could point to a specific sentence or paragraph or page: It's the tenor of the whole thing. Again, you still need to cite anyone who has influenced your thinking. At the end of the sentence or paragraph where you discuss their works, you'd do the parenthetical citation but with just their last name or names and the year: no pages. Yatta, yatta, yatta (Sung and Lee 1998). Or maybe yatta, yatta, yatta but, on the other hand, blah, blah, blah (Sung and Lee 1998; Gomez 2002). "What if it's someone's else's data set like you were using peak streamflow data for a creek in the San Gabriel Mountains collected by the USGS from 1931 on? Or maybe the Census to find out how many people live in a particular floodplain? You'd describe your data and give the source, with the responsible agency as the author (USGS 2002). If it's YOUR very own original data, you'll get to cite yourself!

When in doubt, cite. Cover your debts" (Ambos, Bauer, Behl, and Rodrigue 2002-04). The famous Turabian guide is a very good investment, one that you'll refer to a lot over the course of your collegiate and scientific career" (Ambos, Bauer, Behl, and Rodrigue 2002-04). It even makes your research look that more thorough: "wow, this student really got into the literature!"

Be aware that I do Google any sentence that looks suspiciously different from the rest of an essay's writing, if it isn't quoted or cited. I typically immediately find the source. If I find plagiarism, I will assign a zero for the whole assignment, even if it was only a couple of lines, which brings your overall grade down one or two letter grades. If this happens on more than one assignment, I'll fail you in the class.

If you have any questions about whether you're getting into a grey area, it is much safer just to ask me about it ahead of time, so that I have a chance to work with you on how to do the right thing. Students often pose all kinds of scenarios and that is okay, part of how we all learn. You will find that it is easier than you think and makes your paper look that much more impressive. What's not to like?

Ambos, E.; Bauer, R.; Behl, R.; and Rodrigue, C.M. 2002. 2003. 2004. Introduction to ethical considerations in research. Geoscience Diversity Enhancement Project studet workshop. California State University, Long Beach. Available at <https://cla.csulb.edu/departments/geography/gdep/ethics.html>

This document is maintained by Dr. Rodrigue
First designed: 06/09/07
Last Updated: 09/03/07