13.3 Ethical Principles for Choosing and Using Sources

Students are often concerned with the details of correct citation—when to include an author’s name in parentheses, how to format a references section, how to indicate a quotation within a quotation—and while these are all important and helpful to know, it is more important to understand the larger ethical principles that guide choosing and using sources. Here are a few of these larger ideas to keep in mind as you select and synthesize your sources:

You must represent the topic or discipline you are writing about fairly. If nine out of ten sources agree that evidence shows the middle class in the United States is shrinking, it is unethical to use only the tenth source that argues it is growing without also acknowledging the minority status of that source.

You must represent the individual source fairly. If a source acknowledges that a small segment of the middle class in the United States is growing but most of the middle class is shrinking, it is unethical to suggest that the former is the writer’s main point.

You must acknowledge bias in your sources. While they may be credible, it is unethical to represent sources that offer extreme political views as if these views are mainstream.

You must cite all sources. Using a dictionary definition or encyclopedia article is still considered utilizing a source: if you use exact words, you need quotation marks. If you paraphrase, you still need a citation. Using common/popular sources does not mean the information is “common knowledge.”

You must summarize and paraphrase in your own words. A summary or paraphrase must be completely in your own words and sentence structure. Be sure to give credit where credit is due: clearly distinguish what work and words belong to another and what work and words are yours.

This section is adapted from the chapter on Plagiarism in Howdy or Hello? Technical and Professional Communication Copyright © 2022 by Matt McKinney, Kalani Pattison, Sarah LeMire, Kathy Anders, and Nicole Hagstrom-Schmidt is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.