Signal the Use of
a SourceStrategy 1: Introduce Your Sources
You can use dialogue tags, phrases, and sentences to signal the use
of source material.
Dialogue Tags
Dialogue tags can signal the use of source materials. You can try
something as simple as “John Doe says.” To punctuate a
dialogue tag, when the source is directly quoted, you typically use
a comma. Let’s look at an example:
Shakespeare says, “that time of year thou mayest in me behold” (line
1).
In the example above, the source material is directly quoted. You
also can use this strategy with summarized or paraphrased material.
Schayan (2001) indicates that minimal pair drills rely upon a contrast
of sound to accomplish the goals of auditory training.
As with all of these techniques, overusing any one of them may
lead to your paper sounding repetitive and uninspired. In fact, “John
Doe says” and “John Doe states” are the most overused
techniques for incorporating source material. The problem may not
be with the technique itself, but in the overuse of the verbs “says” and “states.” Try
this technique out with more descriptive verbs. A short list of verbs
appears below.
Verbs to Use Instead of “Says/Said or
States/Stated”
addresses, analyzes, contributes, critiques,
defines, discovers, disproves, establishes,
evaluates, examines, formulates, identifies,
proposes, questions, recommends, reiterates,
reports, suggests, thinks, urges
Many other descriptive verbs are available. Remember when you use
verbs you must be faithful to the purpose and attitude of the original
source.
While dialogue tags can signal the use of source material effectively,
this technique can seem unimaginative and even boring, especially
if it is employed every time source material is used.
Phrases
Introductory phrases can include a variety of information to signal
that the following information is source material; however, you will
want to be certain that the information you include adds to the overall
meaning of the sentence. Let’s look at two examples:
According to Locker (2001), author of Business and Administrative
Communication, women may feel uneasy upon receiving ordinarily positive
comments on their appearance from male coworkers or supervisors.
In a discussion of document design, Heffernan and Lincoln (1997)
indicate that audience analysis should be employed by the writers
of a document to determine the design of a document.
These examples show how effective introductory phrases incorporate
information that enhances the meaning of the sentence. In the Locker
example, providing the name of the text helps establish the authority
of the author, while the phrase “in a discussion of document
design” helps establish a context for the quoted material. The
examples also show that you can include a variety of information to
signal source information such as the author’s name, title of
work, or a summary of content, and many more are possible. However,
be careful not to provide too much information in your introductory
phrase because providing too much information will detract from the
source material. Remember, your point is to lead into the source material.
Sentences
An introductory sentence like “Jane Doe describes the Bolshevik
Revolution” is yet another option for introducing source material.
As with phrases, you will want to include information in the introductory
sentence that adds to the meaning of the source material you’re
citing. These sentences will be punctuated with a colon. Let’s
look at two examples.
In The Power of Myth, a conversation about mythology, Joseph Campbell
enlightens Bill Moyers about how a dream differs from a myth: “Oh,
because a dream is a personal experience of that deep, dark ground
that is the support of our conscious lives, and a myth is the society’s
dream. […]” (p. 40).
Yet another author agrees that one of the first steps in solving
interference-related mispronunciation is auditory discrimination training:
An instructor might use minimal pairs such as pit/bit or pin/bin to
help students understand the difference between the phonemes /b/ and
/p/ (Dickson, 2001).
Again, in your introductory sentence, you’ll want accurately
to represent or explain the source material or set up how the source
material relates to your point for the paragraph.
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