The Mechanics of Quoting Handout

10 Working with other people’s ideas and voices

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Find and correct the mistakes in the following quoted texts. There may be more thanone mistake per exercise. You will need to use the reference list at the end of theactivity to help you.

References:

Davies, S. (2006) The Essential Guide to Teaching. Harlow: Pearson Education.

McLaney, E. and Atrill, P. (2008) Accounting. An Introduction (4th edn). Harlow: PearsonEducation. (Extracts are from page 420.)

Martin, G. N., Carlson, N.R. and Buskist, W. (2007) Psychology (3rd edn). Harlow: PearsonEducation.

Thomas, H. S. C. (2008) ‘Biogeographical concepts’. In J. Holden (ed.) Physical Geographyand the Environment (2nd edn). pp. 153–92. Harlow: Pearson Education.

Activity 10.1 Finding and correcting referencing errors

1 School readiness is a term that refers to a child’s ability to go to school ready to learn,having already gained. . . skills that will prepare them for class learning beforehand.(Davies, 2006: 47).

2 ‘Biogeography is an important area of science and informs global environmental policyas well as local land management practice’. (Hilary S.C. Thomas 2008, p. 241).

3 According to McLaney and Atrill, ‘the relevant/marginal cost approach deduces theminimum price for which the business can offer the product for sale’.

4 In practice, airlines are major users of a relevant/marginal costing approach. McLaney.5 ‘Damage to the amygdala, a cluster of neurons located deep in the temporal lobe,

affects emotional behaviour. . .’ (Martin, G.N., Carlson, N.R. and Buskist, W. Psychology.3rd edn. London: Pearson Education. p. 157).

Assume you used the following quotations in your essay and so need to cite themappropriately. Use the information below to do this.

Activity 10.2 The mechanics of quoting

1 This quote can be found on page 197 of a book called ‘Psychology’. The book waswritten by three authors: Dr G. Neil Martin, Dr Neil R. Carlson and Dr William Buskist.This third edition was published in 2007 by Pearson Education, in London. ‘One of thekey features of the visual system is that it is organised hierarchically at the neural level’.

2 The following quote is from a book written by Philip Kotler, Gary Armstrong, VeronicaWong and John Saunders. The title of the book is Principles of Marketing and thisquote, which can be found on page 475, is from the fifth European edition published in2008. The publishers are Pearson Education and the publishing place is Harlow.‘Market leaders can expand the market by developing new users, new uses and moreusage of its products.’

3 ‘Since 1999 LEAs have had specific duties to combat bullying. Schools must have anti-bullying policies and LEAs must ensure that their schools comply with their duties.’ Thisquote was taken from a book written by Susan Davies and published in Harlow in 2006.The title of the book is ‘The essential guide to teaching’. The publishers are PearsonEducation. The quote was taken from page 269.

M10_GILL1710_01_SE_C10.QXP:M10_GILL1710_01_SE_C10 12/5/09 14:16 Page 184

Multi-authored worksWhere several authors have written a book or journal article then it is a widely usedconvention to cite the main author and then use et al. (short for the Latin term et aliimeaning ‘and others’) rather than listing them all. Usually more than two or threeauthors listed are treated in this way. So, in point 2 of Activity 10.2 you would write:Kotler et al.

2 ReportingThis simply means reporting the other writer’s ideas in your own words and the bestmethod to use is summary. There are two main ways of showing that you have usedanother writer’s ideas – integral or non-integral – depending on whether or not thename of the cited author occurs within the cited sentence or in brackets.

Integral (author as part of sentence)

According to Davies (2006) it is essential that pupils learn how to evaluate theirstrengths and weaknesses.

The importance of pupils learning how to evaluate their strengths and weak-nesses was stressed by Davies (2006).

Non-integral (author in brackets)

Evidence from classroom learning (Davies, 2006) suggests that it is essentialfor pupils to learn how to evaluate their strengths and weaknesses.

It is important that pupils learn how to evaluate their strengths and weak-nesses (Davies, 2006).

At the end of the essay, the reference list will state:

Davies, S. (2006) The Essential Guide to Teaching. Harlow: Pearson Education.

SUMMARISINGWhen you read texts for pleasure you are not usually expected to summarise them.However, in order to have sufficient material for you to work with when writing yourassignments, you need to read a variety of texts and select information which is rel-evant to your work. Once you have identified suitable material, you need to make anumber of adjustments before you can incorporate it into your assignment. Asummary, which is basically a shortened version of a text, is one such adjustment. Asummary should contain your chosenmain points from the original text in a condensedmanner. It should be written in your ownwords and the sourcemust be acknowledged.

Notice how you can retell a text with which you are familiar. This could be a novel,magazine or newspaper article. What would you need to do if you were reading itout loud to a friend? You would probably find that you were reading the sentencesword for word. If you put the text aside for half a day or so and then try to retell the

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Summarising


content of the text without looking at it, you will notice that you cannot rememberthe text word for word, unless you have a photographic memory of course.Hopefully, you can remember the main points or sequence of the text and you canretell it in your own words. Which of these two ways of telling the story is more likea summary?


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Try reading a text whose subject you are not familiar with. How easy did you findrelating the original in your own words without referring back to the text?

Activity 10.3 Summarising unfamiliar text

Read the original text and the summary which follows and note down the differ-ences between the two texts in the table below.

Activity 10.4 Noticing features in summarised text

Original version

There are a number of ways of expressing the total amount of water in the oceans.Seawater covers 361 million square kilometres (361 � 106 km2) which represents 71% ofthe surface of the globe. The total volume of water is enormous: 1.37 thousand millioncubic kilometres (1.37 � 109 km3). Most of this water is contained in the three great oceansof the world: the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian Oceans. (Holden, 2008: 57)

Summary

The surface of the earth comprises 71% seawater, most of which can be found in theIndian, Pacific and Atlantic Oceans.

Features you identify Original version Summarised version

Length of text Shorter than theoriginal

Points to help you summarise1 Make sure you understand the original text.

2 Think about your purpose in using this text. What is your purpose in writing yoursummary?


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Summarising

� Are you summarising to support your points? or� Are you summarising so you can criticise the work before you introduce your

main points?

3 Select the relevant information. This depends on your purpose.

4 Find the important ideas (words and phrases) and mark them in some way or listthem elsewhere.� Distinguish between main and subsidiary information.� Delete most details and examples, unimportant information, anecdotes,

examples, illustrations, data, etc.

5 Find synonyms or alternative phrases for those words (a thesaurus would help).You do not need to change specialised vocabulary.

6 Change the structure of the text. This includes:� changing adjectives to adverbs and nouns to verbs� breaking up long sentences and combining short sentences� identifying the relationships between words and ideas and expressing them

in a different way. (Be careful you do not change the meaning.)

7 Once you have completed the above steps, you can begin to rewrite the mainideas in complete sentences combining your notes into a piece of continuouswriting. Use conjunctions and adverbs such as ‘therefore’, ‘however’, ‘although’,‘since’, to show the connections between the ideas.

8 Check your work.

TIP Make sure:� your purpose is clear� you have not copied any text (unless you are quoting)� you do not misinterpret the original� the length of your text is shorter� the style of writing is your own� you acknowledge other people’s work.

Activity 10.5 Evaluating summarised text

Read the following extract and the two summaries that follow it. Which text is abetter summary and why? Remember to take into account the summarising pointsabove.

Fossil fuel continues to be the main source of energy. Moreover, the developing world,which consists of about five sixths of humankind, will increase its population and its fossilfuel burning for many years after the rich countries have stabilised and decreased theirdependency on fossil fuels. Some poor countries have neither fossil fuels nor any othersupply of energy, and so cannot develop. Even fuel-wood is in short supply.

�



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Nuclear power was developed enthusiastically by many countries in the 1950s, and 29countries were running 437 nuclear power plants by 1998. Early optimism about develop-ment of an energy economy from nuclear fission faded following nuclear accidents andleakages such as Chernobyl in the USSR (now in the Russia Federation) in 1986. Manyenvironmentalists believe that the risks that are inherent in nuclear fission are quite unac-ceptable. Power from nuclear fission is very expensive, once the costs of handlingradioactive waste and decommissioning old power stations are taken into account.Despite all this, many governments are in favour of continuing and even expanding theirnuclear power programmes, and for many it is the only practical way to reduce carbonemissions. (Holden, 2008: 612–13)

Summary 1

Currently, fossil fuel remains the main energy source and whereas rich countries will be ina position to turn to alternative forms of fuel in the future, developing countries will becomemore dependent on it. Alternative forms such as nuclear power seemed a likely alternativein the 1950s but its development in the 40 years that followed had some disastrous results.Although environmentalists view it as risky and expensive, certain governments are con-tinuing to pursue nuclear power programmes and for many there are no other practicalalternatives of reducing carbon emissions. (Holden, 2008)

Summary 2

Fossil fuel remains the main energy source. Rich countries will reduce their reliance onfossil fuel in the future, whereas developing countries which make up about five sixths ofhumankind will become more dependent on it. Some poor countries will not develop dueto a lack of energy supplies as even fuel-wood is decreasing.Nuclear power was exploited by many countries in the 1950s, and 29 countries were

running 437 nuclear power plants by 1998. However nuclear accidents and leakages suchas Chernobyl in the USSR in 1986 have led to a decrease in its development. This is furthersupported by environmentalists’ views that the risks are too high in addition to the highcost of developing power from nuclear fission. In spite of the negative evidence, many gov-ernments are continuing and in certain cases expanding their nuclear power programmes.For many governments nuclear power is the only practical way to reduce carbon emis-sions. (Holden, 2008)

Using the information provided in this chapter, summarise the following short text.Use the summarising tips on page 187 to check your work.

Activity 10.6 Summarising short texts

Home detention curfews were introduced by the Crime and Disorder Act 1998. Prisonerssentenced to between three months’ and four years’ imprisonment can be released early(usually 60 days early) on a licence that includes a curfew condition. This requires thereleased prisoners to remain at a certain address at set times, during which period they willbe subjected to electronic monitoring. Most curfews are set for 12 hours between 7 pm and


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Summarising

7 am. The person can be recalled to prison if there is a failure to comply with the conditionsof the curfew condition or in order to protect the public from serious harm. Private contrac-tors fit the tag to a person’s ankle, install monitoring equipment which plugs into thetelephone system in their home and connects with a central computer system, and notifybreaches of curfew to the Prison Service. (143 words) (Elliott and Quinn, 2008: 413)

Using the information provided in this chapter on summarising, summarise the fol-lowing text. Use the summarising tips on page 187 to check your work.

Activity 10.7 Summarising longer texts

Micturition, voiding and urination all refer to the process of emptying the urinary bladder.Urine collects in the bladder until pressure stimulates special sensory nerve endings in thebladder wall called stretch receptors. This occurs when the adult bladder contains 250–450 ml of urine. In children, a considerably smaller volume, 50–200 ml, stimulates thesenerves.The stretch receptors transmit impulses to the spinal cord, specifically to the voiding

reflex centre located at the level of the second to fourth sacral vertebrae, causing theinternal sphincter to relax and stimulating the urge to void. If the time and place are appro-priate for urination, the conscious portion of the brain relaxes the external urethralsphincter muscle and urination takes place. If the time and place are inappropriate, themicturition reflex usually subsides until the bladder becomes more filled and the reflex isstimulated again.Voluntary control of urination is possible only if the nerves supplying the bladder and

urethra, the neural tracts of the cord and brain, and the motor area of the cerebrum are allintact. The individual must be able to sense that the bladder is full. Injury to any of these partsof the nervous system – for example, by a cerebral haemorrhage or spinal cord injury abovethe level of the sacral region – results in intermittent involuntary emptying of the bladder.Older adults whose cognition is impaired may not be aware of the need to urinate or able torespond to this urge by seeking toilet facilities. (248 words) (Kozier et al., 2008: 489)

Taking into account the suggestions above, use your own reading material and sum-marise texts relevant to your assignments. Use the summarising tips on page 187to check your work.

Activity 10.8 Using your own texts



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PARAPHRASINGThere may be times when you are writing when a summary of ideas is just notappropriate or relevant. You may wish to maintain a closer link with the original butyou do not want to quote word for word. Paraphrasing is one solution. It is best tolimit paraphrasing to short chunks of text. You need to change the words and thestructure of the original but keep the meaning the same. Do remember that evenwhen you paraphrase someone’s work you must acknowledge it.

Notice the changes which have been made in the paraphrase extract of the fol-lowing example:

ExampleOriginal

The mere physical proximity of one person to another is a potent facilitator ofattraction (Martin et al., 2007: 757).

Paraphrase

Attraction between two people is greatly influenced by their physical close-ness (Martin et al., 2007).

Original Paraphrase

Physical proximity Physical closeness

Of one person to another Between two people

X is a potent facilitator of Y Y is greatly influenced by X

‘Physical proximity’ is the subject of thesentence

‘Attraction’ is the subject of the sentence

Paraphrasing the words of the original is not a particularly difficult task provided youunderstand the original text. Remember to use a thesaurus to help you find alterna-tive vocabulary.

Points to help you paraphrase1 Make sure you understand the original text.2 Find the important ideas (words and phrases) and mark them in some way or list

them elsewhere.3 Find synonyms or alternative phrases for those words (a thesaurus would help).

You do not need to change specialised vocabulary.4 Change the structure of the text. This includes:

� changing adjectives to adverbs and nouns to verbs� breaking up long sentences and combining short sentences


� identifying the relationships between words and ideas and expressing themin a different way. (Be careful you do not change the meaning.)

5 Once you have completed the above steps, you can begin to rewrite the mainideas in complete sentences combining your notes into a piece of continuouswriting.

6 Check your work.

TIP Make sure:� you have not copied any text� the meaning is the same as the original� the style of writing is your own� your paraphrase is the same length as the original� you acknowledge other people’s work through appropriate referencing.

Remember that when paraphrasing you are actually trying to avoid overquoting in yourwork. Paraphrasing is the alternative to direct quoting. You will probably therefore onlyneed to paraphrase short texts. When dealing with long paragraphs or indeed pagesor chapters, summarising the main ideas in the text would be more appropriate.

Here are some additional expressions you can use to refer to someone’s work thatyou are paraphrasing. They are equally useful for summarising text.

The work of X indicates that . . .

The work of X reveals that . . .

The work of X shows that . . .

Reference to X reveals that . . .

In an article by X, . . .

As X has indicated . . .

A study by X shows that . . .

X has expressed a similar view.

X has drawn attention to the fact that . . .

X reports that . . .

X notes that . . .

X concludes that . . .

X argues that . . .

X discovered that . . .

Research by X suggests that . . .

Once again, please refer to Chapter 11 with reference to how these expressions canbe included to help you find your voice in your written work.

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Paraphrasing

SeeChapter 11

�



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Read the following short text and the two examples of paraphrase which follow it.Which example is a better paraphrase and why? Remember to take into account theparaphrasing tips above.

Activity 10.9 Evaluating paraphrased text

Anorexia nervosa is an eating disorder characterised by a severe decrease in eating. Theliteral meaning of the word ‘anorexia’ suggests a loss of appetite, but people with this dis-order generally do not lose their appetite. (Martin et al., 2007: 606)

Paraphrase 1

An extreme reduction in food consumed by a person may indicate they have the eating dis-order anorexia nervosa. Although the term ‘anorexia’ literally means losing your appetite,this is generally not the case with sufferers. (Martin et al., 2007)

Paraphrase 2

Anorexia nervosa is an eating disorder indicated by an extreme reduction in eating.‘Anorexia’ literally means a loss of appetite, but people with this disorder do not generallylose their hunger. (Martin et al., 2007)

Using the information provided in this chapter on paraphrasing, paraphrase the fol-lowing texts. Use the paraphrasing tips on page 191 to check your work.

Activity 10.10 Paraphrasing text

Text 1

One study found worse outcomes among children adopted from an at-risk register thanamong those fostered or returned home. The explanation for this finding is not clear.Possibly the adoptive parents chosen were less thoroughly assessed than would havebeen the case if they had been offered more ‘popular’ children for whom the competitionwould have been greater. (Wilson et al., 2008: 502)

Text 2

The shift toward segmented marketing and the explosive developments in information andcommunications technology have had a dramatic impact on marketing communications.Just as mass marketing once gave rise to a new generation of mass-media communica-tions, the shift towards targeted marketing and the changing communications environmentare giving birth to a new marketing communications model. (Kotler et al., 2008: 693)


SYNTHESISINGWhen reading for assignments, you are advised to read widely. Do not try to baseyour entire piece of work on one or two articles or books. You need to ensure thatyou have ample material to incorporate into your work. The previous two areas youhave worked on are summarising and paraphrasing, which should help you cutdown on superfluous quotes. They will also be useful in this third strategy – synthe-sising. A synthesis is a combination, usually a shortened version, of several textsmade into one. Once you have selected relevant parts of your sources to work with,you can use your paraphrase and summary skills to write the information in yourown words. The information from all sources has to fit together into one continuoustext and the sources must be acknowledged and appropriately referenced.

All of the points provided in the earlier tips for summarising and paraphrasing arerelevant when you synthesise with the addition of the tip below, which you shouldadd to the summarising tips.

TIP Organise the information you have from summarising the different texts.You could give all similar ideas in different texts the same number or colourto help you group them together. You may find the information on planningand developing paragraphs in Chapter 6 useful at this stage.

Please note that synthesising material is insufficient in itself. In order for synthesisto become an academically well-written piece of work, you will need to refer to otherchapters in this book.

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Synthesising

Taking into account the suggestions above, use your own reading material andparaphrase short texts relevant to your assignments. Once again, use the para-phrasing tips on page 191 to check your work.

Activity 10.11 Paraphrasing your own texts

SeeChapter 6

�

Taking into account the suggestions above, use your own reading material and syn-thesise texts relevant to your assignments. Use the summarising and synthesisingtips on pages 187 and 191 to check your work.

Activity 10.12 Synthesising your own texts


WRITING A LIST OF REFERENCESIn addition to the references within the text, you need to provide a list of materialsthat you have used or referred to, at the end of all pieces of academic writing. Thisusually has a heading: References. Make sure you cross-check all the referenceswithin your text against the reference list at the end. The purpose of this referencelist is to supply the information needed to allow a reader to find a source. Theauthors appear in alphabetical order in the reference list.

Some of the referencing methods used in the academic world are:

� the Vancouver system� the MLA� the APA style� the Harvard system.

There is no definitive version of the Harvard system, however, and most universitiesuse their own varieties.

ExampleThis is an example of the Harvard system style. Each reference written in this styleis ordered as follows depending on the source. (Note that all the commas and fullstops form an important part of the referencing system.)

Textbook

Martin, G. N., Carlson, N. R. and Buskist, W. (2007) Psychology (3rd edn.). Harlow:Pearson Education.

Note the following:

� surname of author and author’s initial (this information is repeated for each of theco-authors)

� year of publication in brackets� title of book in italics� edition number in brackets if applicable (e.g. 3rd edn)� publishing location� publisher’s name.

A text from an edited collection

Thomas, H. S. C. (2008). ‘Biogeographical concepts’. In J. Holden, (Ed.), PhysicalGeography and the Environment (2nd edn), pp. 39–64. Harlow: Pearson Education.

Note the following:

� surname of author of chapter and author’s initial (this information is repeated foreach of the co-authors)

� year of publication in brackets� title of chapter in quotation marks


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� initial and surname of editor of book followed by (ed.)� title of book in italics� edition number in brackets (if applicable)� page numbers of chapter� publishing location� publisher’s name.

Journal article

Woodward-Kron, R. (2002) ‘Critical analysis versus description? Examining the relation-ship in successful student writing’. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 1,121–143.

Note the following:

� surname of author of chapter and author’s initial (this information is repeated foreach of the co-authors)

� year of publication in brackets� title of article in quotation marks� title of journal in italics� volume number in italics� page numbers of article.

Newspaper article

Curtis, P. (2008). ‘University entrants hit record high.’ The Guardian, 22 August, p. 4.

Note the following:

� surname of author and author’s initial� year of publication in brackets� title of article in quotation marks� name of newspaper in italics� day and month of article� page number of article.

Website article

Harnack, A. and Kleppinger, E. (2003) Online! A reference guide to using internet sources.Retrieved, August 22, 2008 from http://www.bedfordstmartins.com/online/cite6.html#1

Note the following:

� surname of author and author’s initial (if available) (this information is repeated foreach of the co-authors)

� year of publication in brackets� title of complete work in italics� other relevant information (volume number, page numbers, etc., if available)� full date article was accessed� URL.

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Writing a list of references


Encyclopedia or dictionary

Longman dictionary of contemporary English (1978) London: Longman

Note the following:

� title of publication� date� publishing location� publisher.

It is important to check which system is used by your department but also by indi-vidual lecturers. Handbooks supplied by your subject leaders usually provide areferencing guide.


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Find and correct the mistakes in the following five references. There may be morethan one mistake in each reference.

Thompson. (2001) Interaction in Academic Writing: Learning to Argue with the Reader. AppliedLinguistics, 22, 58–78.

Davies, S. (2006) The essential guide to teaching. Harlow.Jeffries, S. (2008, 21 August) The ice age. The Guardian, pp 4–6.Brassington, F. and Pettitt, S. Principles of marketing (4th edn.) Harlow: Pearson Education.Holden J (ed.) (2008) Physical Geography and the Environment. 2nd edn. PearsonEducation.

Activity 10.13 Finding and correcting errors on reference list

Looking at the five references above as a whole and ignoring the numbering, whatis the overall error?

Activity 10.14 Find the overall error

Write a reference list using the style shown in the example above for the followingthree quotes:

Activity 10.15 The mechanics of referencing

1 This quote can be found on page 197 of a book called ‘Psychology’. The book waswritten by 3 authors: Dr G. Neil Martin, Dr Neil R. Carlson and Dr William Buskist. Thisthird edition was published in 2007 by Pearson Education, in London. ‘One of the keyfeatures of the visual system is that it is organised hierarchically at the neural level.’


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The Mechanics of Quoting Handout