These guidelines will help you determine whether you need to acknowledge a source.
Need to acknowledge
Quotations
Paraphrases or summaries of a source
Ideas you glean from a source
Little-
Graphs, tables, and other statistical information from a source
Photos, visuals, video, or sound taken from a source
Experiments conducted by others
Interviews
Help or advice from an instructor or other students
Don’t need to acknowledge
Your own ideas expressed in your own words
Your own observations, surveys, and findings from field research you conduct yourself
Common knowledge—facts known to most readers
Facts available in many reliable sources, whether or not they are common knowledge
Drawings and other visuals, audio, video, and any other materials you create yourself