Guides: Optometry: Cite & Organize Sources

Using Your Sources: Quoting, Summarizing, and Paraphrasing

Summarize, paraphrase, and quote to include others' ideas in your own writing.

Summarize: Condense the information to a few general statements. Summarize when you find the same information in many sources. Summarize when one source provides a lot of context for your project.
Paraphrase: Put the information in your own words. Paraphrase when one idea is important but the exact wording does not matter. You will often find paraphrasing useful if multiple sources have similar information.
Quote: Use a small portion of another person's words, exactly as that person wrote or said them. Put quotation marks around the words or phrases you borrowed. Quote when information is unique to one source and is not easy to reword. Quote when one source uses especially compelling language.

How to Recognize Plagiarism: Tutorial and Tests
Learn how to use your sources in your paper in this tutorial for graduate students. You already know that you need to cite your sources. Explore how to blend information from your sources with your own ideas. From Indiana University.
Skip the certification test; it is only for Indiana University's own students.
Academic Phrasebank
The "Introducing Work" and "Referring to Sources" pages suggest phrases to use in your paper. Use the suggested phrases to help you evaluate others' ideas and include them in your paper. Other parts of the site might be helpful as you write other parts of your paper. For example, those parts might help you write your methods or conclusions. From the University of Manchester.

AMA Citation Style Examples

AMA Style (11th Ed.) University of Southern California
Overview of citing different kinds of sources in AMA style (11th edition.) Download a quick guide or skim through the site to find instructions and examples.
HealthLinks: University of Washington (AMA Style 11th Edition)
A brief list of "tips" and tables of sample citations you can use as models for your own citations.

Quick Citation Tools

The Cite Button

Most of the Library's electronic resources can generate a citation for you. Check for the Cite Button or other Citation Tools in these locations:

In the menu to the right of an article/abstract.
At the top of the results list.
Under each citation in the results list.
At the bottom of an article/abstract page.

Citation Generators

Citation generators are useful tools for creating citations. Remember though, no citation generator is 100% accurate. Please double-check your citations against the handbook to be sure they are correct!

ZoteroBib
- ZoteroBib is a quick, web-based citation generator provided by Zotero--no account or software installation needed.
CiteThisForMe
- Great for creating one-off citations in a wide variety of styles, including AMA. You can also create an account and save bibliographies here.
Citation Machine
- Standard online citation generator that walks you through the process of finding the information you need for a citation and then creating it.

RefWorks

RefWorks (https://refworks.proquest.com)

a bibliographic management tool that will automatically format citations (end notes and footnotes) and a bibliography for your papers.

You must set-up an account:

RefWorks Help

Detroit Mercy Tutorials
Link leads to university library page with instructions for using various RefWorks features and links to other RefWorks help.
RefWorks Guide
An entire website that will assist in all aspects of using RefWorks.
RefWorks You Tube Channel
Multiple short videos (1-3:30 min) that demo RW features