Cite Your Sources!
So many of you are undergrad or graduate nursing students and writing scholarly papers is an
expectation of academic programs. And of course, if you are writing a manuscript for a journal, you will also credit your sources.
My advice, after reading hundreds of student papers and reviewing manuscripts for journal submissions, is to be overcautious about citing your sources. If in doubt, cite!
Plagiarism is bad. Make sure you understand how to paraphrase so that you can integrate the author's ideas into your paper, but don't copy their unique words or phrases. You still have to cite your paraphrases! Without the cite, and because there will be no quotes, you will give the false impression to the reader that the ideas are your original thoughts - and that's wrong. So please demonstrate your integrity
by citing correctly.
If you just HAVE to quote, then do it correctly. Use quote marks, cite the words exactly as written (you can use ellipsis marks if you want to leave out some words), and cite the authors, year, and page number for the material. In APA format, it would look something like this: "Use quote marks, cite the words exactly
... and cite the authors, year, and page number for the material" (Thompson, 2017, p.1). Then you'd cite my newsletter as the source for that quote.
The bottom line: Crediting authors for their ideas is a hallmark of a professional. This is an expectation of nurse scholarship and it's just the right thing to
do!
For additional help, don't forget to download my APA format eGuide. It comes with a Plagiarism guide too! Because you are a subscriber, click the link below and you won't have to re-enter your email address.
Please don't give friends this link, but send them to the website to sign up. Thanks!
FYI:
- I posted a video on General Guidelines for Writing Formal Papers: APA Format on YouTube. You can access it here.
