Most composers at some point depend on source material—words, data, audio, or images that come from elsewhere. Writers in medicine depend on clinical studies; caseworkers in the social sciences depend on interviews; filmmakers depend on scripts.
Responsible composers integrate and document their sources according to the conventions of their field. These conventions don’t always translate well from field to field. Imagine watching a movie and having citations to reference material appear on the screen throughout the movie. Likewise, imagine reading an academic article that makes claims but offers no support and no citations. When you are composing, you will want to pay attention to the expectations for crediting your sources in the type of composition you are creating.
You’ll find advice about the following in this section:
Understanding why documenting sources is important
Knowing when a citation is needed
Integrating sources in a multimodal composition
Documenting sources in a multimodal composition