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EDE Sources: Locating, Citing & Giving Credit: Start Here

This guide covers: 1. Locating good sources 2. Citing sources 3. Plagiarism

Locating College Level Resources

The best place to look for college level resources is your library homepage:  reynoldslibraries.org

It is important to think critically about the resources you find online as well as in print to determine if a resource is credible. The checklist below will help you identify resources to use for college research assignments:

ABCD’s of Evaluating Resources:  

  1. Author/Authority
  2. Bias
  3. Content/Currency
  4. Design

Locating the Good Sources

North Carolina State University Libraries. This video is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States license - http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/tutorials/evaluating-sources/

Why should I cite my sources?

The primary reason to cite your sources is to avoid plagiarism and give proper credit to the original author or creator.  Other reasons for citing your sources:

  • Enables a reader to locate the sources you cited.
  • Demonstrates the accuracy and reliability of your information.
  • Shows the amount of research you’ve done.
  • Strengthens your work by lending outside support to your ideas.

Citation: A (Very) Brief Introduction by libncsu is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA.

What is Plagiarism?

Plagiarism is using another person’s ideas or words without clearly acknowledging or citing the source of that information. You must give credit whenever you use:

  • Another person's idea, opinion, or theory.
  • Direct quotes from another person's actual spoken or written words.
  • Paraphrasing of another person's spoken or written words.
  • Any piece of information this is not common knowledge (e.g., fact, figure, statistic, chart)
  • Multimedia created by another person (e.g., photo, drawing, film clip, music, etc.)

How to avoid plagiarism in 5 easy steps

How to Avoid Plagiarism in 5 Easy Steps by Steelman Library is licensed under CC BY-SA.