4 The Scholarly Conversation, Citations, and Plagiarism
The Scholarly Conversation
Research involves finding what other people (hopefully experts) have said about the topic you’re investigating. In fact, these experts may have been talking about your topic – doing research, sharing their findings, reading each other’s work, and then using that information to do new research – for many years.
Jumping into this conversation can be overwhelming! Each article, book, video, or other source you find is someone’s contribution to that conversation. When you use that information as part of your own assignments, you are now part of the conversation! If you publicize your own work eventually, someone else interested in the topic might find it and use your ideas as part of their research. Thus, the conversation continues.
Citations
Citations are an essential part of the scholarly conversation. In order to give credit to other people’s contributions, and so your readers can find the sources you used, you must provide citations for any information you include that isn’t your own work. This information includes quotes, paraphrased ideas, images, data, and more.
Later, we’ll learn how to properly format a citation. (You are, of course, encouraged to watch our citations overview video ahead of time if you like.) For now, it’s just important to know that they are not optional. If you’re ever not sure how to format a citation, do your best instead of skipping it. At minimum, include the title, author, and date if you can find it. For online sources, include a link.
Examples
Here’s a couple examples of what citations look like:
Vancouver Aquarium. “Sea Otters Milo and Otis Holding Paws.” YouTube, September 30, 2011, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHIIzcWqsP0.
Jorgensen-Wells, M. A., Shawcroft, J., Taylor, L. D., & Spencer, E. (2025). Romantic ideas and ideals in popular music: A content analysis of the Taylor Swift musical catalog. Psychology of Popular Media. https://doi.org/10.1037/ppm0000606
Plagiarism
Plagiarism is including information from outside sources without credit or claiming someone else’s work as yours. It is a very serious academic offense. Do not submit work that isn’t yours or skip citations for outside sources. You risk losing credit for your assignment, not to mention more serious consequences from the university.
Please reach out to your professors, the writing center, the library, or another appropriate person on campus if you’re not sure whether part of your assignment constitutes plagiarism. We’re happy to work with you.
All that sounds scary, but good news – if you don’t already know how to cite outside sources, you’ll learn in this class!
Key Takeaways
- The scholarly conversation involves researchers sharing their findings on a topic and others responding to/building on those findings to create a larger body of knowledge.
- Citations acknowledge where you found outside information and are an essential component of the scholarly conversation.
- Plagiarism is claiming other’s work as your own.
