Practicing Integrity in Written Work
As a student, practicing integrity includes conducting your research and documenting your sources properly. Just as all communities have their own codes of behaviour, so too do academic communities. Different disciplines may have differing ways of acknowledging influences, sources, and ideas.
Your instructor is your best source of guidance on how you should document and acknowledge sources within the context of a particular assignment.
Click the sections below to review some general guidelines for practicing academic integrity.
Citing sources within your essay or assignment can be done in two ways: 1. In-text citations This is a short version of a citation (full information will appear at the end of the paper) which is common in many citation styles such as APA , MLA and Chicago’s author-date style. While differences in how these styles work apply, what they all have in common is the use of a short-form version of the citation to direct the reader to the full entry in the list of references that appear at the end of the paper. Consult the Creating Bibliographies Module to learn more. Example using in-text citations and APA 7th Edition: Below are two examples of how this might happen in the body of an essay using an article written by Grassini in 2023, as an example, with APA 7th Edition as the citation style. In the first case the idea being referenced is getting emphasis, and a parenthetical citation is used, while in the second example, a narrative citation is used, giving more prominence to the author: Despite ongoing debates, GenAI is now firmly established in education and could soon bring significant changes to how we teach and learn (Grassini, 2023). Grassini (2023) observes that despite ongoing debates, GenAI is now firmly established in education and could soon bring significant changes to how we teach and learn. 2. Footnotes or endnotes Another way in which citations can be embedded within the body of an essay is using footnotes or endnotes. Example using a footnote and Chicago 17th Edition Notes & Bibliography Style: It has been observed that despite ongoing debates, GenAI is now firmly established in education and could soon bring significant changes to how we teach and learn.1 1Simone Grassini, “Shaping the Future of Education: Exploring the Potential and Consequences of AI and ChatGPT in Educational Settings.” Educational Sciences 13, no. 7 (2023), 692. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci13070692 Using footnotes or endnotes is different to in-text citations, but the purpose is the same: to properly cite the source within the body of the paper, observing the citation style rules. The above approaches meet the requirements of academic integrity. When deciding which approach to take with your citation formatting, also consider the following: For more information about incorporating sources into the text of your document, consult the Essay Structure module. Learn more about how to create bibliographies via the Creating Bibliographies module. How you report on another author’s original speech will influence the accuracy of your reader’s perception of that author’s ideas. For your instructors, it will affect how they perceive the quality and honesty of your work. To ensure that you report speech with integrity, imagine how the original speaker would respond to your presentation of their words. If they would feel the need to correct your interpretations of their ideas, then reconsider your use of their original speech. When reporting on the original speech of another author, aim for the following: What is considered “common knowledge” varies among disciplines and fields of practice, which complicates your task of figuring out what to cite and what not to cite. Work according to three general guidelines: To learn more, review What is Common Knowledge? located in Resources. Paraphrasing means to report what someone has said or written in “your own words.” To paraphrase is to give a second-hand report of original speech that captures the spirit or meaning of a person’s idea(s) without using his or her original words. Even though not using the author’s wording, you must identify the author as your source using an appropriate citation style. In the examples below, for instance, the authors are not quoted directly, but it is clear that they are the sources of the ideas. Example 1: Ramos et al. (2024) suggest that that creating diverse social networks offers advantages that more uniform networks cannot provide. Example 2: Artificial intelligence is often highlighted as a potential solution for addressing the escalating severity of climate change issues (Chen et al., 2023). To learn more about paraphrasing, visit the Essay Structure module. Summarize when you want to report the overarching argument – the crux or central point of a text. When summarizing an author’s ideas, you may draw on both paraphrasing and direct quotation. Summarizing can include anything from a short overview of a text’s topic, to a much longer and more in-depth report on the details of an author’s arguments. Like any other reported speech, summarizing requires you to identify the source(s) of the idea(s) using an appropriate in-text citation style. Example 1: Studies have suggested the importance of metadiscourse in casual conversation (Schiffrin, 1980), school textbooks (Crismore, 1989), oral narratives (Norrick, 2001), science popularizations (Crismore and Farnsworth, 1990), undergraduate textbooks (Hyland, 2000)… Example 2: Use direct quotation when you want to report words, phrases, or descriptions exactly as they appear in another text. Generally, you will want to do this when something about the original phrasing is interesting and noteworthy in some way. Writers identify direct quotation by using quotation marks and in-text citation. It is necessary to identify their specific location within the source (for example, page numbers in texts or minute marks in videos). Here are some examples of how direct quotations may be integrated into an author’s work. Note how the quotations are marked and the exact location identified. Example 1: In Gladwell’s (2019) book, he explores the idea that skepticism and distrust can undermine the quality of our relationships with others. He contends “If you don’t begin in a state of trust, you can’t have meaningful social encounters” (p. 77). Example 2: Mastering the art of writing by conveying ideas clearly and concisely has always been a core objective of a university education. Southworth (2023) maintains that “writing is not only how we express our thoughts to others, but it’s how we develop our own thinking” (para. 3). To learn more about using direct quotations, visit the Essay Structure module.
In-text Citation
The first sentence below shows how the relevant text referring to the Grassini article published in 2023 would appear in the body of the essay. The footnote below this provides more detail about the article. This would appear at the bottom of the page.
Report Speech Responsibly
Common Knowledge
Paraphrasing
Summarizing
Direct Quotation