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ETHICAL SOURCING FOR WRITERS

Simply put, sourcing is just to let readers know where you got your information if you got it somewhere other than your own knowledge.

It is a very important component of a college paper and each Professor will give you guidelines as to how he wants it sourced whether it be footnotes, bibliography, annotated bibliography, etc. However for articles for the Internet or for magazines, there isn't a lot of sourcing, but it still is a good idea to source any material that is not your own - such as ideas, opinions, another writer's writing, etc.

If you are writing from your own knowledge and developing your own ideas there is no need to source.

The ethical need for sourcing is to not take another persons copyright material and call it your own. To do so would be unethical. You might wonder what is ethical. Ethical refers to the absolute right thing to do in a given circumstance. The only absolutely right thing to do in the circumstance of writing material where you have gained information from another author is to source that material and then you have behaved in an ethical manner.

It is not okay to copy any material whether it has a copyright or not. In that case, it would be truly unethical to copy, because it would be taking advantage of whoever wrote the material.

However, all material written today has an immediate copyright. Just by writing it and putting your name to it gives it a copyright. But not if you wrote something you copied. The copyright belongs to the original writer of the material.

In some cases you must get permission from the original writer to even use the material and source. Usually there will be a note with the writer's material stating that you must have permission from the author or publishing company to use the material.

So in this case it would be unethical to use a writer's material without permission even though you sourced it. I have come across a few such articles on the Internet that required permission from the author to use the author's material.

Also some material written by authors is in the public domain and no permission is required and no sourcing is required unless you are requested to source your material.
However it would not be okay to directly copy material in the public domain. To do so would be unethical, but you can certainly use the material freely.

So when writing; it is always a good idea to check before using material and sourcing. You want to be very sure that it is okay to use the material before you go ahead and use it.

Sometimes young people who are just getting into writing are not aware that copying is wrong or unethical. Because oftentimes assignments for children in elementary school are geared to the student writing up work copied from the textbook. But writing once it becomes more professional can never be copied. If information is gained from another person's writing it must be written in your own words and then acknowledged by giving the source or reference or bibliography.

If you can think of no way to write the information in your own words, you can copy and indent the paragraph and source it or put it in quotations and source it.

You can say so and such (author, name of book or article) said the following: And here write the information that came from this author and article. And then also give the source at the end of the article.

In conclusion, sourcing is to just let people know where you got your information and ethical sourcing has to do with what is right. It is right to source material that is not your own.

Learn more about this author, Colette Georgii.
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