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Citations

Citations play an important role in academic texts. They are used to demonstrate the familiarity of the citing author with the field of investigation, to provide support for his/her research claims or criticism. Giving credit to cited sources is called documentation. There are two main methods of documenting. The first one, numeric, involves putting a number near the reference (usually in square brackets), e.g.:

On the whole, understanding text as a polyfunctional sign allows plurality of meaning-projections of its contents [4].

In [5] the authors give an interesting numerical account of the advantages and disadvantages of the BV-formulation for the image restoration problem.

The full reference is given then in the bibliography at the end of the text – in numerical sequence, or as a footnote at the bottom of the page.

The second procedure of documenting, which is probably more popular, consists in putting a short reference in the text itself. Normally, it includes the author’s (authors’) last name(s) and the year of publication and page numbers in parentheses (separated/not separated by a comma or a colon, rather often depending on the journal requirements to the authors), e.g.: (Crystal 1995, 29), or (Crystal 1995: 29). If a reference is made to the whole work, the page numbers are usually not given: (Drakeford, 1998).

Failure to provide the appropriate documentation may lead to the accusation of plagiarism. Plagiarism is conscious copying from the work of others. In Anglo-American academic culture, plagiarism is treated as a serious offense.

Need to Document No Need to Document
When you are using or referring to somebody else’s words or ideas from a magazine, book, newspaper, song, TV program, movie, Web page, computer program, letter, advertisement, or any other medium When you are using "common knowledge" — folklore, common sense observations, shared information within your field of study or cultural group When you are compiling generally accepted facts When you are writing up your own experimental results

 

The words or phrases of other authors used (quoted) in academic writing are called quotations. Quotations may be direct or indirect. Quotations are direct if the author’s words in quotation marks (double in American and Ukrainian usage and single as in British) are incorporated into the text and separated from the rest of the sentence by a comma (or, if necessary, by a question mark, or an exclamation point):

It can be argued that “the acquisition of phonological competence and discourse competence go hand-in-hand” (Pennington, 1990, p. 549).

As Morley (1979) has noted, “Sentence stresses are the strong parts in the rhythm of the sentence” (p. 38).

Quotations may be indirect, that is integrated into the text as paraphrase (meaning restatement of the meaning in other words):

In a more recent article, Pennington (1995:706) says that

In a recent state-of-the-art discussion, Morley (1991, pp. 492-495) reviewed some of the major shifts in instructional focus in the pronunciation component.



You don’t need to document in case you refer to the material known as “common knowledge”. Material in probably common knowledge if:

- you find the same information undocumented in at least five other sources;

- you think it is information that your readers will already know;

- you think a person could easily find the information with general reference sources.

 

While writing a research paper in English, remember, that although the suggested steps reflect certain prominent tendencies characteristic of English academic writing, you are not obliged to strictly follow them in all cases.

 


Date: 2015-01-02; view: 925


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