Answer to Question #250621 in English for Nii-Amo Justice

Question

Briefly explain when you should use a citation in your academic essay.

Answer 1

To help produce ideas and sharpen an argument, one should use sources creatively and flexibly. When it comes to acknowledging sources in an essay, there are a few hard and fast guidelines to follow. When you include facts from a source in an academic essay, you should include a citation. Commonly known facts discovered in a unique or exceptional context should be highlighted so that the reader understands how your argument was influenced by the context in which it was discovered. When you paraphrase or summarize ideas, interpretations, or conclusions found in a source, when you introduce information that is not common knowledge or that may be common knowledge in your field, but the reader may not be aware of it, and when you borrow the plan or structure of a larger section of a source's argument, for example, using a theory from a source and analyzing the same three case studies that the source analyzed.