Sources alone do not make for an effective research paper. Instead, the ideas, explanations, and details from your sources need to be integrated — combined and mixed — with your own thoughts and conclusions about the question you have investigated. Together they eventually form a unified whole that conveys your perspective and the evidence that logically supports it. To make sure that your voice isn’t drowned out by your sources, keep your research question and working thesis — maybe still evolving — in front of you as you integrate information. On the other hand, identify and credit your sources appropriately, treating them with the respect they deserve.

Once you have recorded a source note, you may be tempted to include it in your paper at all costs. Resist. Include only material that answers your research question and supports your thesis. A note dragged in by force always sticks out like a pig in the belly of a boa constrictor.

When material does fit, consider how to incorporate it effectively and ethically. Quoting reproduces an author’s exact words. Paraphrasing restates an author’s ideas in your own words and sentences. Summarizing extracts the essence of an author’s meaning. You also need to launch captured material by introducing it to readers and to cite it by crediting its source.