Entry Tips: Acknowledging Sources

Note that the guidelines in this entry are required for all your weblog postings.

Although weblog postings are often informal and sometimes make liberal use of material found in other places, legally and ethically all your posts must clearly distinguish between your own ideas and words, and those of others. In general there are three categories that concern us here: Your own original ideas (which do not need to be attributed); ideas you have found other places and put into your own words (which must be clearly attributed in text and also, preferably, with a link), and direct quotes (which must be clearly attributed in text and with quotation marks and also, preferably, with a link).

At this point I assume everyone knows how to distinguish among these three categories when they write on paper (that is, you don't need a major refresher on when you should identify other people's ideas and words in your writing in general). These basic guidelines are meant instead to help you ensure you are properly acknowledging your sources in the somewhat informal and fast-paced atmosphere of weblog writing.

1. Every entry you publish must include some of your own words (and preferably more of your words than words you have borrowed from somewhere else). This is good practice in general; anytime you use a quote you have to use your own words to put that quote into context.


2. For ideas borrowed other places and for quotes, give your reader enough information so she can identify and (hopefully) track down your source. If you use an online link to the source, that with just a few words in the text should suffice for acknowledgment in most cases. For offline sources, you will need to provide a bit more detail.


3. Always put quotation marks around direct quotes, whether single words, phrases, or longer text. For longer quotes (of more than a couple of lines of text) you should also use the blog editors quote tool to set the quoted text apart from your own words.

We can discuss this further in class, but be sure in all your weblog writing to follow these guidelines. On the last assignment I allowed a bit of leeway because you were just learning the blogging tools, but for Assignment Two and all future assignments you must follow these rules.