FYC Wiki

• Obviously, sources refers to both primary and secondary sources.
• These sources are most commonly used in three ways.  (These definitions taken verbatim from The OWL at Purdue at this page.)
• Quotations must be identical to the original, using a narrow segment of the source. They must match the source document word for word and must be attributed to the original author.
• Paraphrasing involves putting a passage from source material into your own words. A paraphrase must also be attributed to the original source. Paraphrased material is usually shorter than the original passage, taking a somewhat broader segment of the source and condensing it slightly.
• Summarizing involves putting the main idea(s) into your own words, including only the main point(s). Once again, it is necessary to attribute summarized ideas to the original source. Summaries are significantly shorter than the original and take a broad overview of the source material.

Sections

This area of the rubric has four main sections, one of which is divided into four subsections:

• "Selects and integrates sources in ways that are appropriate to the genre of writing"
• Obviously, different genres have different requirements.  For instance, a memoirist might introduce and contextualize a quotation very differently than an academic essay writer.  This line is designed to give the instructor some leeway to teach the use of sources differently depending on the assignment.
• "Uses and assesses credible source material"
• On this section as well, the definition of "credible" will vary depending on context and instructor.  But its overall point should be clear: students will be rewarded when they use sources that come from the "best" places, which in academic essays often means sources that come from published sources, scholarly and/or peer-reviewed sources, and university web sites.
• "Appropriately uses primary and/or secondary research"
• The word appropriately is key here.  After all, a student might work extremely hard to collect data from a number of interview and survey sources, but he might then bring that information into his essay in a way that fails to integrate with his main argument, feels off-topic, or feels distracting.  Alternately, a student could conceivably read a stunning amount of scholarly materials and then summon them in a way that fails to answer the pressing logical questions of readers.
• "Skillfully integrates sources in quotations, summaries, and paraphrases (when required) that
• "Support student writer's focus (not used as filler)"
• One common issue in writing is the failure of the essay to make the writer's position as clear as he or she thinks it is.  This often happens when quotations are plopped in without much explanation or contextualization.  This can, of course, be an accidental blunder or purposeful padding; however, this question of intent matters little, as the teaching is the same.
• "Are reputable and appropriate"
• This is where we reward students who use sources from scholarly sources and/or the best websites (such as those from .edu or .gov sites, or found through the library databases).  Of course, not every assignment requires these, which is why the word appropriate is there as well.
• "Are well introduced and explained"
• It's easy for writers to drop in quotations expecting that their purposes for it are obvious.  But of course, readers usually need to be massaged into a quotation, with the author explaining its source and context.  Explained here also refers to the stance the writer takes in relation to the quotation; in many academic contexts, writers should be rewarded for entering into a conversation with the quoted language, as opposed to simply quoting to rely on the authority of another author.
• "Are carefully integrated into writer's voice, not excessively quoted, with block quotations used sparingly and appropriately"
• This point arms instructors to respond to the common error of filling a paragraph with so many quotations of such length that the student writer's voice and purpose becomes lost.  This sometimes means that a source should simply be summarized in order to briefly respond to it, or it can mean that it is more appropriate to briefly quote one or two apt phrases instead of a huge chunk.