Twenty-Third Lesson

Using your sources creatively

In this section, we are going to spend some more time thinking about how you might use your different sources in order to integrate the voice of all different authors and writers that you are drawing on when composing your own writing. 

On of the challenges you face as a student writer is finding a way to integrate the source you are drawing on in your own work, and using them effectively to build your own argument without using too many direct quotations from the authors you are using.

A helpful tool in this process of integration is to pay attention to the range of linking words you can use to make a connection in your argument between your ideas and those of the authors you are drawing from. The following activity should help you to do this.   

Activity Fifteen: How you introduce your sources

Look at an example of on of your own assignments. Make a list of some of the words and phrases you have used which signal the shift back and forth between your words and the words of your source author. 

Now take a article you have read or on you need to read for a forthcoming assignment. Use word and phrases the author has used to add to your original list. 

These are some of the ones on our list:

• Discusses
• Points out
• Illustrate
• Claims
• Shows
• Argues
• Provides evidence 
• Says
• Proposes
• Suggests
• Asserts 
• Assumes