by Gerard Coulombe

Created on: October 19, 2009

Should writers at Helium be required to cite sources? Since Helium does not have a rule, standards are shifty propositions that are interpreted differently by writers across the writing spectrum.

Wager what you will, or not at all, you can be sure that there are writers who play catch me if you can. They use other people's material without ever thinking that somebody might, someday, decide it matters enough for someone to question a statement and that someone ought to be those who flaunt the rules, just for starters.

The "APA Research Paper [Shaw]" is recommended here as a model for those Helium writers who wish to abide by a set of rules when it comes to using or paraphrasing someone else's work. The writer will find a useful download at this site: www.dianahacker.com/pdfs/Hacker-Shaw-APA.pdf.

A requirement that a writer cite his sources simply tells the reader that the information as quoted or paraphrased belongs to someone else. The material is borrowed from another writer. It does not vouch for the accuracy of the material nor does it vouchsafe that the material is well researched.

One can cite or borrow from any number of writers to prove a point. It by no means certifies in any way that the sources and the statements are true or valid.

Having dispensed with this misconception, let us just say that it is simply an honest journeyman's task to take responsibility for what is his and to attribute to others what is theirs. And the APA method alluded to in this paper is just one method of doing just that.

Less some writers think that it is fair game to paraphrase without attribution, let the writer beware. It is a technique employed by many students simply because they have never learned the difference between what is their work and what is someone else's even when it is transformed into one's own words.

Citing one's sources is simply the honest thing to do. In all honesty, the only rigidity in this requirement is an acknowledgement that sources validate what one has written or introduces a basis for a valid opinion, proposition, idea or solution, or presents a counterpoint to what one has argued.

A "fact" as the on-line dictionary states " is a thing that is indisputably the case." It needs no independent verification. There is no need to cite sources for facts.

However, now a days, there are disreputable advertisers and propagandists that twist the facts or use disinformation to distort the facts. In those cases one needs check the facts if one is in doubt as to the veracity of the assertions made based upon faulty assertions.

For example some members of the food industry are waging a campaign to mark certain brands of food as "healthy choices" when to informed shoppers they are clearly not.

A code of ethics for writers that requires them to attribute sources used is never a constraint nor is ever a restraint on writers to otherwise express themselves clearly and effectively while conveying ideas or expressing viewpoints.

To assert anything else is to fail to recognize an obligation that a writer has, and that is to attribute to those other writers that which is properly theirs.

One would be remiss to assert or suggest that Helium wants anything less.

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