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Using Outside Sources: Overview

Most academic writing assignments require that you refer to and include outside source materials related to your chosen topic. These materials take many forms besides books and articles. Films, interviews, surveys, Web sites, radio and television shows, to mention a few, are also outside source materials.

Regardless of what types of materials you use, they should be carefully evaluated before you include them in your own work. The credibility of your sources reflects directly upon your credibility as a researcher.

Establishing Credibility with Outside Sources

The main reason writers include outside sources in their work is to establish credibility with their audience. Credibility is the level of trustworthiness and authority that a reader perceives a writer has on a subject and is one of the key characteristics of effective writing, particularly argumentative writing.

Without credibility a writer's ideas are easily dismissed. Including outside sources in your writing indicates that your opinions are based on more than a personal or surface knowledge of the subject. It shows that others agree with your ideas, that experts in the field corroborate your reasoning and that there is hard evidence to support your opinion.

Knowledge of the Subject

Writing that "shoots from the hip," without citing outside sources, is fine for many purposes, an Op-Ed piece, for instance, but not for academic writing.

Without establishing that they have researched and studied their subject, writers can and do appear intelligent and witty, however, the question arises: how much do they really know about their topic?

Citing and documenting source material in your work shows your reader how knowledgeable you are regarding the facts and background of your subject. Your reader will know that you've put time and effort into making sure you "know whereof you speak."

Voices in Agreement

One person declaring something to be true can be easily ignored or dismissed. After all, it is only one person's opinion. It may or may not be true. When several people agree that something is true, however, it is not so easy to dismiss.

By including source material in your writing, you tell your reader, in effect, that there is a "chorus" of agreement on your ideas.

That said, be aware that a "chorus" of agreement does not necessarily mean that the "chorus" is right. Citing and documenting the "chorus" simply bolsters the credibility of your argument and gives others the opportunity to research your findings further and come to their own conclusions.

It also indicates that you have done your homework on the subject and that what you have to say can be trusted at least to the extent of your research efforts.

Expert Witnesses

When establishing credibility with a jury, attorneys often call witnesses to the stand who have expertise in a given field. The "expert witness" provides opinions and presents facts regarding the technical aspects of a case. This is done because the attorney does not have the professional credentials of the witness. By borrowing the credentials of the "expert" the attorney is better able to argue his or her case.

For instance, a brain surgeon has the medical expertise to explain whether, why or how a certain type of brain injury leads to memory loss. The attorney does not and banks on the jury trusting the "expert testimony" of the surgeon.

As a student, you are often put into this same position. You will be writing about unfamiliar subjects; topics in which you have little or no expertise. By including source material in your writing you, too, are calling upon "expert witnesses."

Researching outside sources helps you find statements from authorities on the subject that you then can quote or paraphrase within your paper. The ideas you express then become not just yours, but those of men and women who have studied and worked in your field of study for years. In effect, you make your case by "borrowing" the knowledge of experts and including it in your paper.

Hard Evidence

Because hard facts (such as the date a war started) and statistics can be independently verified by your readers through their own research or experimentation, this type of evidence is often the most credible form of support you can offer for your ideas.

As a student, you usually won't have the time to conduct first hand surveys or experiments of your own with which to generate such hard evidence. Instead, you may call on the primary research from outside sources and use the same statistics they cite to back up your ideas (giving full credit to the source of the statistics, of course).