How Do I Protect Myself?

Citing the words of others is a more straightforward task than citing ideas you've picked up from others, but in both cases it's easy enough to quiet any concerns that your collaborative work might raise. We'll discuss strategies for both kinds of citation here, so that you can make sure that it is clear in your papers when you are drawing on the words or the ideas of others.

Properly Citing the Words of Others

You have, no doubt, received instruction many times on the conventions for identifying when you are using the words of others in your own writing. Here, we will just briefly review the two primary ways of indicating usage of this kind: for additional assistance with these conventions, we encourage you to refer to the citation section of any standard grammar handbook.

You identify your use of the words of others either through quotation marks and through the indentation and blocking of longer quotations. These two typographical conventions signal to your reader that you are embedding the words of another person in your own writing: the conventions signal the addition of another voice to the conversation.

Examples:

• Quotation Marks

According to Abram, the reason that we no longer look upon nature with reverence and awe for its spontaneous beauty is that we are no longer able "to clearly see, or focus upon, anything outside the realm of human technology, or to hear as meaningful anything other than human speech" (20).

• Indentation for longer citations

Armstrong believes that all human cultures, despite their apparent differences, have pursued the same lofty goals. As she defines it:

In all cultures, human beings have been driven by the same imperatives: to be intelligent, responsible, reasonable, loving and, if necessary, to change. The very nature of humanity, therefore, demands that we transcend ourselves and our current perceptions, and this principle indicates the presence of what has been called the divine in the very nature of serious human inquiry (79).

One place to test out Armstrong's argument is to consider whether or not it applies to the shamanic practices that Abram studies.

For more on ways to smooth the transition between your own prose and the material you cite, see Week Seven of the Tutorama, What to Do When You Quote.

Properly Attributing the Contributions of Others: Ideas, Class Discussion, Editorial Assistance

Although the typical image of the writer is of someone sitting alone, scribbling wildly, we know that the best writing emerges out of a rich world of engaged conversation. And so, we believe that one way you can tell if your class is going well is if the class discussions of the readings and the peer review process are helping you to re-think your first impressions and to re-work your first drafts. In a collaborative environment such as this, it is, in other words, a sign of success when the ideas of others start having an influence on your own thoughts. This kind of influence isn't something to be avoided or concealed: rather, our writing classes are small and we require that papers be revised precisely because we hope to foster this kind of influence.

When it comes time for you sit down to write by yourself, though, it may be hard to know exactly what to do with the ideas you've heard in class. Who do those ideas belong to? And how are you meant to cite them? How do you know when you are doing more than just repeating what someone else said or what the class as a whole has come to think? In the examples below, we provide you with straightforward ways to demonstrate when you are drawing on the ideas of others and when you are using those ideas to generate your own insights and draw your own conclusions.

Examples

• Ideas and Class Discussion

The problem of how to cite the ideas of others and the insights that are generated during class discussion is relatively easy to solve. If someone has said something in class discussion or during your peer review that has helped start your thinking off in a new direction, you need only mark that moment in your writing with a brief introductory phrase acknowledging the contribution.

For example, if Shahin made a statement during class discussion that shifted the direction of your thoughts, you might note this in your essay with a simple statement of this fact:

As Shahin suggested, there's a problem with Armstrong's emphasis on "the personal God."

You would then follow this statement by showing where you've taken this idea since that discussion. Your work, in other words, is not simply to note the contribution: your job is to show what you can do with this idea on your own. Or to put this another way, if your paper is nothing but a record of what others have thought and said, appropriately attributed, you won't be in danger of plagiarism, but you will be in danger of failing, since your job is to show what you can do with the words and ideas that the course has put before you.

Here are other phrases you might find useful:

This thought hadn't occurred to me until Marcie brought it up during peer review.

One way to connect these ideas is to do what Bill did in class.

After talking about this idea for some time with Sean and Judy, we all concluded that the only way to clean up the Raritan would be to make people see the health consequences this polluted river poses to those who live nearby.

• Editorial Assistance

If you've received editorial assistance, you want to make certain not to bring any words or ideas into your essay that are not yours. You should restrict the assistance you receive on editing your drafts to help with grammar and syntax. Imagine yourself taking the Attribution Test discussed in the previous section. Would you be able to pass?

If you can't define the words and explain the ideas in your essay on your own, without assistance, you have crossed the line and are in danger of handing in work that could be judged as having been plagiarized.

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