Using Your Research

1. Using Your Research How to incorporate research into your paper and cite it appropriately

2. Using Quotes A rule of thumb when incorporating quotes into your research is that it should always be something you cannot say on your own. Jane Smith, a clinical psychologist, puts it best when she says, "Cats are the best pets. They're just better than other kinds of pets" (111). This does not need to be quoted, because you can paraphrase this on your own.

3. Quotes Quotations included in your research paper should provide specific details and information. It should tell the reader something new. Jane Smith, a clinical psychologist, claims that cats are better than other pets because "cats are an alien race come to earth, and have much to teach us about our place in the universe" (111). Notice how the above quote provides information that is new and specific, while the below quote is vague and general. Jane Smith, a clinical psychologist, puts it best when she says, "Cats are the best pets. They're just better than other kinds of pets" (111).

4. Your Quotes Should Be Relevant You never want to incorporate quotes into your paper just for the sake of using research. This is why it is best to write your paper first, then see where you need to incorporate more information. By sprinkling quotes in your paper in random places, you will lose the reader and disrupt the flow of your paper. Take a moment to read your own paper. Where do you need to use research? Where have you already used research?

5. Quotations Once you have isolated specific places in your paper where you should implement quotations from your research, go back to the articles you have found and reread them. What information do you think is most important to include in your paper? Remember, it doesn’t just need to be important, it needs to be relevant to your TOPIC. Not every detail in your research is going to have a place in your paper. Use the information that is most relevant to your thesis statement.

6. In-Text Citations In-text citations are very simple, but also very important. If you do not properly cite your sources, both in-text and in your works cited page, you could get in trouble for plagiarism. Remember, no quote should stand alone. All quotations should be put in the context of a larger sentence.

7. If the author’s name is used in the quote, you do not need to include them in the citation. Frederick Lane reports that employers do not necessarily have to use software to monitor how their employees use the Web: employers can “use a hidden video camera pointed at an employee’s monitor” and even position a camera ”so that a number of monitors [can] be viewed at the same time” (147). The underlined section of that sentence is called a signal phrase. This is a useful tool to keep quotations short and sweet.

8. If the author’s name is NOT mentioned in the sentence, you must include the name. Companies can monitor employees’ every keystroke without legal penalty, but they may have to combat low morale as a result (Lane 129). This example does not include a signal phrase, but it is still accurate. Notice the author’s name at the end.

9. If there is no author, you need to replace that with the title. Titles of books are italicized; titles of articles are put in quotation marks. A popular keystroke logging program operates invisibly on workers’ computers yet provides supervisors with details of the workers’ online activities (“Automatically”).