simpleSteps

Simple Steps for Better College Writing is a 50-minute workshop and handout to teach and learn how to properly paraphrase and quote by Lydia Leonard-Rhodes.

View the Project on GitHub hsudml/simpleSteps

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Simple Steps for Better College Writing

Paraphrases and Quotations

Digital Media Lab Quick Guide

This short guide will get you started with your project. For more information about this or other topics, visit http://libguides.humboldt.edu/dml.

Description

This guide will give you a tips and best practices for paraphrasing and quoting in academic papers.

When do you do it?

The amount that you paraphrase/quote may partially be dictated by your discourse. Different genres value different approaches!

Paraphrasing

Remember to cite when using someone else’s ideas!

Try Paraphrasing this Text

“Their virtual success is rooted in their real biology. Cats are solitary, asocial hypercarnivores built to do one thing: get meat. The famous cat meme I Can Haz Cheeseburger, in which a gaping gray cat demands a quarter-pounder, had the right idea. Every fiber of the feline being is evolved to hunt, and cats employ a distinctive stalk-and-ambush approach, in which they sit very still and watch for prey to innocently wander by, then explode from the underbrush to slaughter it. This stalking and pouncing is perfect for a six-second Vine or a pithy tweet. Think of your favorite YouTube cat videos: A cat springs into a box, or bops a baby on the head without warning, or rockets out from beneath the bed. What you’re watching is an ambush.”

Tucker, A. (2016, October 15). How cats evolved to win the Internet. The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/16/opinion/sunday/how-cats- evolved-to-win-the-internet.html

Things to Keep in Mind

Example Paraphrase

One author interested in cat videos is Abigail Tucker. Having researched cats and social media for years, Tucker (2016) argues that the rise in popularity of cat videos is centered around their hunting instinct. She points out that the seriousness with which cats approach their prey makes them susceptible to humorous juxtapositions (Tucker, 2016).

Quoting

Infographic of a quote sandwich with the top as the introduction, the filling as the quote and the bottom as the explanation

Example:

Having researched cats and social media for years, Tucker (2016) argues that a cat’s “stalking and pouncing is perfect for a six-second Vine or a pithy tweet” (Tucker, 2016). Because of the seriousness with which cats approach their prey, they are susceptible to humorous juxtapositions.

Additional Resources

Research Help Desk: located on the first floor of the library.

Purdue’s Online Writing Lab

Davis, J. P. (2007). The Rowman and Littlefield guide to writing with sources. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc.

Graff, G., Birkenstein, C., & Durst, R. (2015). They say, I say: The moves that matter in academic writing. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company.

The HSU Writing Studio: located on the first floor of the library. Students can make appointments online or in person at the Learning Center front desk.

Writing Studio hours for Spring 2018 are:

For more info visit: http://libguides.humboldt.edu/dml or email dml@humboldt.edu

This guide has an open Creative Commons license. You can use, share, remix and repurpose this content as long as you attribute the author, Lydia Leonard-Rhodes CC BY, 2018. If you’re re-using this guide, we’d love to hear about your project- dml@humboldt.edu.