University of Algiers 2 Research Methodology 3LMD

Department of English Ms. Daghi

Citing, Quoting and Paraphrasing

Citing:

It refers to blending and incorporating research source materials into a piece of writing. In
academic writing, citing sources is essential and required; whenever the researcher integrates a
source in his writing he has to cite, i.e. whenever the researcher quotes or paraphrases a source,
he has to include a citation crediting the original source.

Aims of citing:

To avoid plagiarism by indicating the source

To give credit to the author of the source

To allow the reader to consult your sources for themselves

Types of sources:

A. Printed sources: books, periodicals (newspapers, magazines, scholarly journals (articles),

government or organizational reports), theses, dissertations and lectures.
B. Digital sources: CDs, web pages, YouTube videos….

These sources could be primary or secondary.

A. Primary sources: are the materials that researchers consult themselves.

B. Secondary sources: when researchers find difficulties to get accessed to certain sources, they
use the secondary sources. The latter are cited within the materials that we are accessed to.

Incorporating research into the researcher’s writing:

Research could be integrated into one’s writing using two means; quoting or paraphrasing.

A. Quoting: it is to copy another writer’s short piece of text word for word. This method is used
when the researcher is impressed by the idea and by the way of saying it. Quotes must be said
between quotation marks. Block quotations are used for long quotes.
B. Paraphrasing: it implies putting the text into the researcher’s own words using one’s own
style. Besides, the paraphrase should not be too close to the original wording, though it must
keep the exact idea and information as of the original source.

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Introducing the citation in the text:

Whenever quoting or citing the researcher must introduce them to prepare the reader using
specific phrases and mentioning the writer’s name.

For example: According to Nunan (1992) ‘……..’

As Bell (1999) stated ‘……..’

What to cite:

 Common knowledge is not to be cited. We mean by common knowledge the information

we assume most people know, like Tokyo is the capital city of Japan.
 Cite the facts that are open to dispute, and the facts that are little known and come from a
specific source.
 Opinions, facts, illustrations and evidence that are borrowed from other writers need to be
cited.

(Weber, 2007)

Citing can take place in the text that is referred to as in-text citations and at the end of the text as
a Reference list or Bibliography containing full information of the sources that are cited in the
text.

Citation style:

When writing a research report, the researcher has to adopt a certain citation style. It is usually
the institution or the journal the researcher is submitting to will require following a specific style
guide (manual). In this case, researchers must respect the guidelines. In other cases, researchers
choose the style themselves. The choice of the style is determined by the nature of research, for
this it is highly required to choose the appropriate style.

The most used styles in academic writing are APA or MLA.

American Psychological Association style or as known APA: is widely used in social sciences.
These sciences include; psychology, education, business, economics, nursing, linguistic studies.
http://www.apastyle.org/elecref.html

Modern Language Association style or as known MLA: is common in the humanities. These
studies explore; philosophy, languages and literature, foreign language communications religious
studies and the arts.

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Writer’s Handbook: MLA Style Documentation:

http://www.wisc.edu/writing/Handbook/DocMLA.html

(This section will be further developed in the next lesson)

Reference:

Weber,K.M.A. (2007) Writing a Great Research Paper: Quoting, Citing, & Paraphrasing Style
Guide. New York: Video Aided Instruction,Inc