Sources: About Citing Sources: Why Cite Sources?

Table of contents

About citing sources

Why acknowledge sources?

When to cite sources

What is plagiarism?

IF SOURCES — books, articles, CD-ROMs, interviews, newspapers, graphical images, etc. — provide some of the voices in that intellectual conversation we call scholarship, then citations of those sources reveal the autobiographies of scholars. Citations indicate what we have read, how we have come to our views; they tell the story of our intellectual journeys. Although the media of scholarship have changed over time, from handwritten medieval codices to printed books, from academic journals to electronic Web sites, the practice of authors leaving autobiographical traces by citing sources has long remained an essential feature of the scholarly life. ¹
Why should you acknowledge your sources, those other voices in the conversation in which you participate as a scholar?

1	Citations reflect the careful and thorough work you have put into locating and exploring your sources.
2	Citations are a courtesy to the reader, who may share your interest in a particular area of scholarship. They help readers understand the context of your argument, and locate your work within other conversations on your topic.
3	Citations allow you to acknowledge those authors who made possible particular aspects of your work. Failure to provide adequate citations constitutes plagiarism.
4	Citations, by delineating your intellectual debts, also draw attention to the originality and legitimacy of your own ideas. As one historian of the footnote has observed, citations "confer authority" on the writer. ²

By citing sources, then, you demonstrate your integrity and skill as a responsible participant in the conversation of scholarship.

1	This present version of Sources is indebted to many of the ideas expressed in earlier versions written by Dartmouth faculty and staff in 1960, 1987, 1995 and 1996.
2	Anthony Grafton, The Footnote: A Curious History (Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1997) 8.