Using Sources in Your Papers

In this document, I will usually assume that we are talking about written sources, including material on the internet, but the same principles apply to anything produced by someone else, such as a painting or a song. They also apply to oral sources; for example, if you take something from my lecture, or from an interview, you should cite it.

Many students do not understand when and how in their papers they should acknowledge (cite) the use of materials written by others. It is essential that you should learn this, since improper use of such sources, called plagiarism, is a serious violation of university policy that could lead to you failing this course or being suspended or expelled from the university. Should you commit plagiarism in a published work you could face grave legal and financial consequences. Fortunately, it is easy to learn the rules and apply them. If there is ever any doubt, err on the side of acknowledging your source.

In your writing, if you use any book, article, paper, letter, inscription, website, song, work of art, or anything else produced by someone else, whether or not it is published and no matter who the writer or creator is--a professional writer, your friend or relative, your roommate, etc.--you must acknowledge this fact appropriately. You must acknowledge the source whether you quote it exactly, paraphrase it, or merely use some of its ideas.

*The only exception to the rule is if the information can be considered common knowledge, which means that all of the following are true:

*It is widely accepted. If there is difference of opinion on whether the material is true, you should cite your source.

*It is widely available--found in many sources, such as encyclopedias, biographies, textbooks, etc. If it is an obscure fact, found only, say, in an obscure book, you should cite your source.

*Even if the information is common knowledge, you must present it in your own words. If you use exact words, you must quote and cite it.

*Any direct quotation must be enclosed in quotation marks. This is true no matter where you get your quotation.

*Many students do not realize that they must cite the textbook if they use it in the ways described here. But using it without citation is plagiarism. This applies as well to the introductions to the primary texts.

*Paraphrasing a source does not mean changing a word or two or substituting synonyms. It means completely rewriting in your own words. If you cannot do this you should quote directly. But a paper that is merely a patchwork of quotations (or even of paraphrases) is not a good paper.

*If you paraphrase, but include a phrase (or even a word if it is an unusual one) from the original source, it should be in quotation marks.

*You must cite any idea or argument you take from a source, even if you do not quote or paraphrase, and even if you develop that idea or argument beyond what is in the original source.

*As you do research for any paper, you should indicate all the important information in your notes, such as bibliographical information, page numbers, whether what you write down is a quotation or a paraphrase, etc. This will save you a lot of aggravation when you are writing, and more importantly it will help you avoid inadvertent plagiarism.

There are many acceptable ways to acknowledge your sources. For this course, and for most history papers, citations should be in the form of footnotes or endnotes (I prefer footnotes). The style historians use is that found in the Chicago Manual of Style, which is the same as that described in the popular and much shorter Turabian, Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses and Dissertations. At the end of a passage that uses another source, you should insert a raised number. The first note will have the number "1," and each successive note should have a sequentially higher number. You then will put the actual citation at the bottom of the page (footnote) or at the end of the paper (endnote). Most word processors will do this automatically for you.

In his analysis of Ptolemy of Lucca, James Blythe argues that Ptolemy was never able to reconcile the positions of Aristotle and Augustine.¹ On the contrary, I will argue that if we take Ptolemy’s unusual formulation of Augustine into account, there is no real contradiction. With regard to the family, "demonstrating the similarities between familial and political relationships was an active concern of thirteenth- and fourteenth-century political commentators."² Yet, Blythe also points out that Aristotle cautioned against equating the family and the state.³

1. James Blythe, Ideal Government and the Mixed Constitution in the Middle Ages (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992), 98-103.

2. James Blythe, "Family, Government, and the Medieval Aristotelians," History of Political Thought 10 (1989), 15.

*"Princeton" in note 1 refers to the city of publication. This is an anachronism, for which there is now no good reason, but you must still follow this accepted form. If the city is obscure or ambiguous, include the state or country; thus "Germantown, TN:"

*most (but not all) authorities now do not use "p." or "pp." before page numbers.

*In the past it was customary to use "ibid.," "op. cit.," "loc. cit.," and various other abbreviations in citations of works that had already been cited fully. Most authorities now find this usage confusing, and I suggest you not use them.

James M. Blythe, "Civic Humanism and Medieval Political Thought," in James Hankins, ed., Renaissance Civic Humanism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 48.

* If you use an item in the collection, it is important to give the specific item, as I did above, and not just the collection as a whole. This is true even if all the items in the collection were written by the same author.