When to Cite a Source: Four conditions

EXAMPLE #1:

HERE IS THE SOURCE:

“Vladimir Tarkoyev was blind and eighty-nine years old by the time history caught up with him, but his memory was clear. Sitting with Colonel Tretetsky and a videocamera, he described how, in April 1940 his unit of the secret police shot Polish officers in the woods outside Kalinin – two hundred and fifty a night, for a month. The executioners, Tokaryev said, “Brought with them a whole suitcase of German revolvers, the Walther 2 type. Our Soviet TT weapons were not thought to be reliable enough. They were liable to overheat with heavy use’ ”– Lenin’s Tomb, David Remnick, 1994.

HERE IS THE STUDENT’S WRITING:

We now know that the death of thousands of Poles at the hands of the Russians in 1940 actually preceded the Nazi invasion of Russia. For years the Russianshad claimed that the thousands of Poles killed near Katyn had been executed by the Germans who invaded in 1941. Vladimir Tarkoryev, who had been a young Stalinist in 1940 admitted in old age that he assisted in the murders: “the [Russian] secret police shot Polish officers…” at a rate of about 250 a night for a month. The Russians used “German revolvers, the Walther 2 type.” Tarkoryev said, “Our Soviet…weapons were…liable to overheat.” [1]

  • How much is being quoted of the original source?
  • Why the use of ellipses (…)?
  • How does that footnote work?

AN EXAMPLE OF STUDENT WRITING USING THE SAME SOURCEWITHOUT QUOTATION:

German weapons were used by the Russians in April, 1940 to murder a great many Polish military officers. Stalin probably did this because he didn’t trust the Polish, especially if they weren’t fellow communists. One man, Vladimir Tarkoyev, a Russian soldier in 1940,witnessed the executions in the woods outside Kalinin, and years later, recalledthat for a whole month as many as 250 Polish officers were killed each night.[2]

  • Why does this need to be cited?

1

EXAMPLE #2:

HERE IS SOURCE:

“The latest film by Steven Spielberg, “Lincoln,”…has the makings of an Oscar shoo-in, particularly for Daniel Day-Lewis’s performance in the title role. The first scene is arresting: Two black soldiers speak with the president about their experiences in combat. One, a corporal, raises the problem of unequal promotions and pay in the Union Army. Two white soldiers join them, and the scene concludes as the corporal walks away, movingly reciting the final lines of the Gettysburg Address.

Unfortunately it is all downhill from there, at least as far as black characters are concerned. As a historian who watched the film on Saturday night in Chicago, I was not surprised to find that Mr. Spielberg took liberties with the historical record. As in “Schindler’s List” and “Saving Private Ryan,” his purpose is more to entertain and inspire than to educate.

But it’s disappointing that in a movie devoted to explaining the abolition of slavery in the United States, African-American characters do almost nothing but passively wait for white men to liberate them. For some 30 years, historians have been demonstrating that slaves were crucial agents in their emancipation…. Mr. Spielberg’s “Lincoln” gives us only faithful servants, patiently waiting for the day of Jubilee. This is not mere nit-picking. Mr. Spielberg’s “Lincoln” helps perpetuate the notion that African Americans have offered little of substance to their own liberation. While the film largely avoids the noxious stereotypes of subservient African-Americans for which movies like “Gone With the Wind” have become notorious, it reinforces, even if inadvertently, the outdated assumption that white men are the primary movers of history and the main sources of social progress.” -- Kate Masur, “In Spielberg’s ‘Lincoln,’ Passive Black Characters” TheNew York Times, November 12, 2012,

HERE IS STUDENT WRITING USING THE SOURCE:

The latest film by Spielberg is politically charged in part because it comes out amidst intense Presidential politics (November, 2012), and because, even after four years of Obama, the nation is still adjusting to having an African-American as president. Spielberg’s “Lincoln” has been critiqued by some as “disappointing” because it is a movie that has African American characters who “do almost nothing but passively wait for white men to liberate them.” This proves that the subject of slavery is still quite a sensitive topic, and that how we depict race in the movies is tricky, especially given Hollywood’s notorious 20th C. track record, where blacks were nearly always cast in subservient and stereotypical roles.

  • The citation is missing! Where should you place the citation?
  • What would the citation look like?
  • Is this condition one (quotation)? or condition two (paraphrasing)?

A SECOND PIECE OF STUDENT WRITING FROM THE KATE MAZUR SOURCE:

Deep down in white Dixie the argument is alive and well that the Civil War was a “War Between the States” over states’ rights -- a noble effort by an agricultural people fighting against a big federal government. Spielberg’s film tries to show, yet again, how the states’ rights agenda was totally wedded to the continuation of slavery. But we also know from historians that black abolitionists, as well as white ones, awakened Lincoln to the idea that the war was fundamentally about slavery and that this inescapable conclusion needed to be publicly stated as a war aim for the Union. Spielberg’s film succeeds in teaching the old lesson about slavery at the center of the causation of war. Angry men in the White House and in Congress in beards shout at each other about slavery, but these men are all white, and ironically no African-American actually contributes to their own emancipation in any crucial way in the film.

  • Should there be a citation here? Where? Why?

EXAMPLE #3:

HERE IS THE SOURCE:

“In Egypt, social class, religious observance, and the differences between city life and village life lead to enormous divergences of experience among the country’s women. The professional, well-traveled young woman from an upper-middle class Cairo family and the illiterate country girl from a conservative family seem to inhabit different countries – indeed, different centuries. Statistics underscore these differences.”

– “Two Revolutions: What has Egypt’s transition meant for its Women?” Wendell Steavenson, The New Yorker, Nov. 12, 2012, p. 32

EXAMPLE OF STUDENT WORK BORROWING JUDGMENT OR CONCLUSION FROM A SOURCE

Categories matter in Egypt when it comes to how women are treated and how they see themselves. Social class and religion, village versus urban life in Egypt create vastly different experiences. A relatively well-off girl from a literate and educated family in Cairo lives a dramatically different life from a village girl raised in a religiously conservative rural household. Girls from the same country may actually live worlds apart.[3]

  • No quotation is used, so why does source need to be cited?

EXAMPLE #4:

HERE IS THE SOURCE:

“The Dreyfus affair shook France, and Europe, greatly affected French politics and jeopardized France’s future. The significance of the affair on French politics from 1894-1906 was to be colossal. The affair triggered many movements that were dormant and waiting for such commotion to appear. With hindsight we can deduce that the Dreyfus affair was not the start of a political battle but an event that precipitated the final battle where the fate of the French republic would be decided….Even today, it is possible to perceive how the Dreyfus Affair acted upon politics in the later parts of the 20th century. We can see how the French collaboration with Nazi Germany during Vichy France was directly related to the Dreyfus Affair. This collaboration was the revenge of the nationalist right-wing elements that had failed to overthrow the government of the 1930s.”

-“The Significance of the Dreyfus Affair on Politics in France” Jean-Baptiste Tai-Sheng Jacquet, June 6, 2012, e-International Relations website,

EXAMPLE OF STUDENT WORK BORROWING JUDGMENT OR CONCLUSION FROM A SOURCE

The Dreyfus Affairhad long-lasting effects in France. It may have underpinned the thinking of right-wing collaborators who found common cause with Nazis during the occupation era of WWII by turning over French Jews for deportation to concentration camps.[4]

  • So why does the source need to be cited?

Examples of Common Knowledge or Well-Known Facts That DONOT need to be CITED

  1. Bears hibernate in the winter in North America.
  2. The USSR was no longer a political entity after 1991.
  3. Fresh water freezes at 32 degrees Fahrenheit.
  4. Arabs generally live in the Middle East
  5. Holland is famous for its tulips.
  6. Tariffs are taxes on imported and exported goods.

NOT common knowledge or well-known and MUST be cited:

  1. The hibernation period of the American Black Bear is usually ten weeks but can vary depending on the severity of the winter.
  2. In December 1991 Gorbachev felt forced to sign the document ending the USSR, which effectively ended his own political career and the future for the communist party.
  3. Salt water freezes at a lower temperature than fresh water, typically four degrees (Fahrenheit) lower, but it depends upon the salinity of the water.
  4. As of 2010, there were approximately 280 million Arabs living in the Middle East.
  5. When the famous Tulip Bubble of 1637 in Holland burst it was possibly the western world’s first financial meltdown.
  6. Unlike many other countries, export tariffs are unconstitutional in the United States, but import tariffs are allowed.

Final review questions:

  • What are the four conditions for citation? (name them)
  • If quoting from same source two or more times in a single paragraph, why use only one citation?
  • How do I judge if the information is unusual or not? (condition four)
  • How do I know if what the author is saying is a judgment or conclusion (and needs to be cited)?
  • What is the largerpurpose of doing citations?

1

[1] David Remnick, Lenin’s Tomb, 1994. p. 5

[2] Remnick, 5.

[3]Wendell Steavenson, “Two Revolutions: What has Egypt’s transition meant for its Women?” The New Yorker, Nov. 12, 2012. p. 32

[4] Jean Baptiste Tai-Sheng Jacquet, “The Significance of the Dreyfus Affair…” June 6, 2012, e-International Relations,