Month: November 2021

Quote Rarely, Paraphrase Often, Cite Generously (Part 2/2)

Part 2: Translating the Words of Others and Crediting Sources

For some students, paraphrasing creates anxiety. Am I doing it correctly? Am I plagiarizing? What do I need to cite? How often should I cite? Where do the citations go? What is common knowledge? And those who are particularly nervous want clear but often impossible guidelines, such as how many words they can take from a text before they need to put it in quotation marks. This last concern is the reason some students put quotation marks around simple expressions of data (“HIV prevalence in South Africa is 19.1%”) and cite the 2020 UNAIDS annual report. They saw that sentence in the report and now are afraid that not using quotation marks may get them in trouble for plagiarism.

I try to move the conversation about paraphrasing and citation away from fear and toward confidence and generosity. Drawing on and citing the work of others is a way of interacting with the scientists and thinkers whose work has contributed to mine. And it has everything to do with the relationship I’m trying to build with reader through the words I put on the page.

Paraphrasing and citing the work of others is, first, a way to enter into conversation with people who are writing in your field. We take information and ideas from other authors and we use it to shape our own knowledge and perspective. When we draw on the work of others, we are entering a conversation with them and developing our voice as we go. Writing is a way of developing expertise and confidence. As you read the work of others, intertwining their information and words with your own, you develop your own voice and expertise.

Here are some of the reasons I cite:

To give credit where it is due. This is the most important reason I cite. I want to acknowledge the hard work of others. So often the art of paraphrasing and norms of citing are talked about as covering your ass. I’ve never thought of it that way and I don’t want my students to either. I want them to approach their citations creatively and generously, not defensively.

To establish my authority to write about the topic and develop my confidence and voice. I just described paraphrasing as an art, a creative way of blending the work of others with new information and my own perspective. I am often writing at the limits of my knowledge. By paraphrasing and citing the work of others I convince myself and signal to my readers that I have something to say that is worth listening to.

To signal to readers in a concise way that I know the literature. When I first started reading public health articles, I was always puzzled by seemingly obvious statements followed by a long list of citations. For example, Children who are orphaned at a young age often experience psychosocial challenges (1-20). I eventually realized that the (1-20) is a form of shorthand, showing I have read widely without getting pulled into tangents only somewhat relevant to the angle I am taking in my paper about childhood adversity and mental health.

To engage in the scholarly conversation. When I was working on my masters and doctoral degrees in English literature we often talked about our writing as participating in a conversation with other readers and thinkers. Writing can be a lonely thing, so I always appreciated this reminder that it is also a way of participating in a community And it’s an important reminder for students, even if no one reads the paper other than you, your professor, and a couple other students.

To help interested readers find my sources. Curious readers who want to do further reading or who have questions about my interpretation of a source should be able to find the source easily.

I will leave you with this challenge. The next time you are writing something that draws on the work of others think about your paraphrasing and citation as acts of creativity.

Read Part 1: Quoting the Words of Others in Public Health Writing

Quote Rarely, Paraphrase Often, Cite Generously (Part 1/2)

Part 1: Quoting the Words of Others in Public Health Writing

Do your best to avoid direct quotations when writing papers in your public health classes. It’s a comment I find myself making again and again on the first round or two of papers submitted by public health graduate students in their first semester. Quotations should be special, I explain. Enclosing someone else’s words in inverted commas draws attention to the exact language they used. You are signaling to your reader that the words and syntax matter as much as the point you are trying to make.

Quote the language of law and policy when you need to explain and analyze it. Quote the language of multi-media campaigns. Use the words of real people (from qualitative research and journalism) when the words themselves offer a window into thoughts, experience, perspective. Quote the words of public figures when you are analyzing their motives, when holding them accountable. On rare occasions, quote a sentence or two from a journal article or book because those exact words sharpen the point you are trying to make in a way that your own words will not.

Quotations should always add value. If they don’t, paraphrase.

All public health writing is essentially an act of translation. The writer is pulling key information on a given topic together to answer a question for a particular audience. Sometimes that reader is a real person, sitting at a desk waiting for our email attachment. She has asked us to gather and synthesize information because she needs it for a proposal, a presentation, a report, or an article. She may be in the process of creating a budget for the coming year and in need of information that will help her decide how to allocate funds for prevention, treatment, or a community program. In other cases, your readers may be a more general audience, looking for information on a topic they want to understand.

In either case, a document that simply strings together large chunks of other people’s words is not useful. Your readers are looking to you to do the work, to transform the information into simple language, to pull together information from multiple sources, and different types of sources so they don’t have to.

When I was an MPH student, I was one of those students who turned in papers filled with quotes. And I was surprised by my professors’ recommendations that I drop the habit. Before deciding to get an MPH, I studied English literature. The words of others, of the authors I was studying, were my data. Start with a quote then analyze the words in front of you and their relationship to other parts of the book and to dialogue, character development, or story arc. For me, paraphrasing often meant providing a gloss of the story’s connective tissue, the historical context it was bringing to life, or its connections to other works by the same author or her peers.

In other words, my thirteen years of previous graduate and undergraduate study (PhD, MA, and BA) had trained me to lean on the words of others. In the MPH program, I had to unlearn all I thought I knew about writing. Becoming more comfortable with and understanding the role of paraphrasing was just one of the many aspects of writing I needed to rethink and practice.

If you are a frustrated student in a similar situation, I hope you will take heart from my story. With practice (usually in response to feedback from professors and colleagues), I did adjust. My writing is now clearer and I feel more in control of what I am saying because I am processing new, complex information more directly and then talking about it in my own voice, for my own purposes. That doesn’t mean I find the process easy. I often struggle to understand the technical jargon and data speak of much of the public health literature I read, so I am always translating for myself first.

If you are a professor who is perplexed by a run of papers laden with quotation marks, consider devoting a few minutes in class to talk about the best uses for quotations in public health writing. And talk about when and how you use quotations in your own writing. When does it work for you? When do you find yourself doing it? What strategies do you have for paraphrasing?

Click here for Part 2: Translating the Words of Others and Crediting Sources