Why Use Language of Attribution

Why Use Language of Attribution

During my writing lectures, I have learned that “Language of Attribution” is one special language expression, which includes some verbs and phrases to cite others’ work or idea. Ms. Lily, the librarian for business subject in UMD, mentioned that attribution is very important when one is writing a research paper. Usually a research paper is written based on information you found in other articles or books. In your paper, you have to give credit to the authors of the article or book or whatever sources you used. You give credit by citing the authors work. You cite by giving the author’s name, title of article, title of journal the article appeared in, date, pages.

According to Ms. Lily, citations are significantly useful in academic writing. Firstly, we are all expected to adhere to academic honesty as students. Therefore, using citations will help us avoid plagiarism in academic writing. In the second place, language of attribution automatically gives credit to others’ research achievement. Indeed, it is a basic rule that we are supposed to obey when writing any kinds of essays. In fact, there are different citing style, one of which is the American Psychological Association (APA) style. In most cases, business students are encouraged to use APA style in academic writing. Last but not least, based on various sources you retrieve from, proper citation format will be different in some extent. For example, when you cite document from internet, website that you use is required to write. Basically, the key to locate your source clearly is to include as much of related information as you can find.

As my librarian stated, students in college park can go to the website: http://www.lib.umd.edu/rc/citation-tools, there is a section titled – Why Should I cite my sources? And then under “Where can I get help with citing”, there are links to the different Style Guides including APA. Without a doubt, these online resources will...