{"id":1147,"date":"2017-11-20T15:02:06","date_gmt":"2017-11-20T21:02:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.msudenver.edu\/sips\/?p=1147"},"modified":"2019-09-10T17:25:27","modified_gmt":"2019-09-10T23:25:27","slug":"sip-6-11-teaching-source-documentation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.msudenver.edu\/sips\/sip-6-11-teaching-source-documentation\/","title":{"rendered":"SIP 6.11 Teaching Source Documentation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thirsty for a Strong Instructional\u00a0Practice?<\/strong><\/h3>\n

\"Citing<\/p>\n

Many faculty mistakenly believe that by the time students get to college, they should know how to cite sources. Or, they may figure that since students in their classes have taken ENG 1020, they already know how to cite sources. Both of these assumptions are faulty and can lead to unnecessary frustration on the part of the faculty and confusion on the part of the student.<\/span><\/p>\n

Take a SIP of This:\u00a0Teaching Source Documentation<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Citing sources effectively is a very complex activity and cannot be fully learned in high school or a one-semester college course, like ENG 1020. Instead, it makes more sense to think of effective source citation as something that students need constant exposure to and instruction in. If we think of source documentation as simply a bibliographic entry and an in-text citation, we actually overlook the subtleties of source selection and source integration. When we put all our attention into source documentation, we imply to students that the only reason to cite sources is to prove that they didn’t plagiarize. In fact, there are much better reasons for writers to cite sources, such as to give a nod to the people who have shaped our thinking on a topic, to indicate which conversation we are participating in, and to help our readers track down our sources so they can join the conversation.<\/span><\/p>\n

Here are some things you can do to help students grasp the complexity of source documentation:<\/span><\/p>\n