by Barbara Whitlock

Created on: August 27, 2007   Last Updated: June 23, 2009

The key to citing your sources is NOT to cite them like you did in school. Rather, integrate your sources into the flow of your article. This article shows you how.

Good writers need to be good researchers. Good researchers need to be careful never to steal another's words or ideas. You prove your research integrity in school by citing sources and footnoting meticulously. But what web reader wants to pour through your citations? None!

You are an Internet writer, trying to keep pace with speedy web browsers and a steady stream of competitive writers - all fellow travelers on the Information Highway. The challenge? To get those speedsters to visit your articles and trust that you write with integrity. You research carefully and keep track of your sources. How do you cite them? Here many Internet writers take an unnecessary detour into the past.

As students, we convinced teachers that hard and honest work went into term papers through footnotes and bibliographies. And scholars do the same. But those models don't work for Helium: too heavy. A more simplified approach works best here, incorporating important sources into your copy rather than running an extensive bibliography at the end. Focus on engaging, informing and entertaining your fast-moving readers, without putting them to sleep with lists.

Helium, as a user-generated content site, does not have the same publisher control over content as mainstream magazines. The ease of plagiarism through the Internet requires extra vigilance by each writer. Where a mainstream publisher can assess a work before publication, a user-generated content site must trust the integrity of its writers, relying on their standards.

How can Helium writers convince readers of the authenticity of their articles? Pick up a magazine and notice the way good writers integrate their sources right into the text. Free yourself from the weight of bibliographies and notes. Weaving your sources into the copy is an effective - and easy - way to integrate research without weighing down your article with an extensive list of sources at the end.

Some examples:

* Studies released in September of 2006 by the Centers for Disease Control report a 38% rise in confirmed cases of bubonic plague, mostly afflicting those in desert-like regions.

* Main stream media as diverse as MSNBC TV evening news (02/08/07) and the Minneapolis Tribune (02/10/07) reported the appearance of Elvis at a local fund-raiser for Gulf-area residents.

* Wendell Berry, in Standing by Words (1983), accuses the Three Mile Island nuclear plant administrators of "purposive subterfuge" in not fully disclosing reactor defects.

Integrate key sources right into the text of your article. If necessary, you can help readers find more information by including a short "For more information" section at the end that points interested readers to further resources on your topic. However, if you are writing to debate titles or other titles for Helium's newspaper partners, do not include any links for more information at the end. These have to be able to stand alone for print publication.

As the researcher and professional writer, you filter for your readers what you found most valuable in your research, molding your ideas from the raw materials gathered in research, direct experience and observation. You are the sculptor, the artist at work. You craft information into a unique form to be shared with others. Stand tall! Write with authority and integrity, and ditch the long lists of sources at the end of your articles. Write to engage and inform, not to prove your scholarship. Your proof is your words.

Learn more about this author, Barbara Whitlock.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.