The comment: Cite your sources
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Similar comments
- Source?
- Whose words?
- Document
Understanding the comment
When readers point out the need to “cite your sources,” the comment often signals that you need to acknowledge and give proper credit to the contribution of others.
Strategies for revising
- Check that you have clearly marked the boundaries between your source material and your own words. Have you borrowed words from sources without properly acknowledging them?
- Use a signal phrase to introduce each source and provide context. Doing so prepares readers for a source’s words.
- Use quotation marks to enclose language that you borrow word-for-word from a source, and follow each quotation with a parenthetical citation.
- Put summaries and paraphrases in your own words and always cite your sources.
Related topics:
Avoiding plagiarism (MLA, APA, Chicago)
Using signal phrases to integrate sources (MLA, APA, Chicago)
Using quotation marks with borrowed language (MLA, APA, Chicago)
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Summarizing and paraphrasing in your own words (MLA, APA, Chicago)