How to Work with Sources for Your Essay Effectively
When you attend college or university, you will be required to write several essays. Some of these papers need extensive investigation of other resources that can assist you in demonstrating that you have a viable proposal. However, locating a reliable source isn’t the only thing you need to accomplish. Then there’s the right inclusion of this argument into your essay, citations, and bibliography formatting. Of course, this labor takes up time that a student could be doing something more valuable. However, if you want to succeed in school, the only way to get excellent marks is to follow all academic guidelines to the letter.
Thus, now we’ll describe in detail how to work with sources effectively, so you can ace any academic paper.
What Are the Purposes of Sources?
Sure, if you have adequate evidence to back up your claim in your essay, it’s a good idea. However, your own experience will not be sufficient to cover every topic that your professor has chosen to put you to the test on. As a result, professional opinions may be required as foundations for your proposal. If you’re a well-known researcher in the scientific community, you might not require this. You’ll need a backup if you haven’t yet received this status.
You may use the following examples to support your argument while writing an essay:
- other’s interpretation of the phenomenon or an object of observation;
- opinions of recognizable scientists or experts;
- bold scientific facts;
- axiomatic ideas;
- facts and data formed in other’s research;
- information from templates and exemplary materials by an essay writing service.
It’s not like you can use anything that seems important to you. Every source has to be trustworthy. Wikipedia and other websites like that are not the best choices for digging information for essay writing.
How To Be Sure That This Particular Source Is Trustworthy?
Essay writing requires extra work with sources. It’s not that hard to understand if it’s a reliable piece of information. What you’ll need is basic media literacy and a couple of hours if you have to write an essay. Sure thing, coursework and other vast papers “demand” more time.
Before actual essay writing, after you gathered some extra materials, take a look at:
- Authorship. Understandably, there are no obligations to use the thoughts of popular scientists solely. Essay writing means working with local sources as well, with “small” research, and short articles. Yet, the author has to have a degree and work in a professional institution that has the competence to evaluate scientific research.
- A way to contact the author(s). It doesn’t mean that you have to call or text them. But this is a sign that this author has proven their identity.
- Citations and sources. These components have to appear in this text properly. So, there must be citations and a bibliography.
- Accuracy of the text. If it’s professional, there won’t be issues with grammar, vocabulary, and other components. Well, if there’s one typo or an ununified character, it’s not a disaster. Yet, this resource has to be 99.9% literate to be worthy of citations in your essay.
- Relevance. Even if the work overall isn’t the best fit for your essay topic, it might still be of high topicality. So, you can cite a part that has something to do with your topic.
How do you include more materials into an essay?
Unfortunately, because every formatting style is unique, there is no universal answer. Even so, you’ll need to use quotes to emphasize this source in the body text. You can, for example:
- Use smaller font when you want to add a big quote to your essay;
- Indent the quote by making margins smaller for them for a couple of inches;
- Use quotation marks if you use a small piece of information that doesn’t need separation. For example, Random Name highlights that “McDonald’s Big Tasty isn’t tasty, it’s better to order chicken nuggets” in their work “I’m hungry”.
- If you point out quotes with separation by changing the font size and margins, you can make them single-spaced. But that works only if your essay is in double-spaced format. In any case, this is optional.
Then you’ll have to format the bibliography. Here you have to write all the:
- names of authors;
- titles of extra materials;
- publishing houses or institutions that published this source;
- dates of each copy;
- the number of pages for every source.
But this is basic instruction. The whole formatting depends on what your professor wants you to use.
Is There a Way to Skip Source Searching and Citation?
If you want to succeed in college by yourself, the answer is no. Sure, you can reduce your standards and achieve a passing mark by using a handful of terrible sources. Even yet, this kind of essay writing will never earn you an A. That’s OK if you’re fine with it!
However, if you want to be a great student, such effort with sources will not enough. If you can’t figure it out on your own, you can seek assistance from your professor. They should be able to present you with publications that are significant in the scientific community. However, if your professor is unwilling to collaborate, there is another option.
Essay Writing Services as an Effective Solution
You’re probably a freshman if you don’t know what this is. Custom essay writing services are very prevalent and well-liked among students pursuing a degree. Online professional writers can handle any type of academic paper. If you don’t want to entirely entrust your essay to them, you may only ask for assistance with references.
If you don’t have the means to use help from professional writers, it’s fine. What you can do is use the templates they systematically post. This way you can follow formatting and other things those professional writers have already done.
In conclusion
Working with sources requires a lot of practice, so it’s okay to make mistakes at the very beginning of your academic journey. Yet, when essays become your everyday burden, you’ll have to work more effectively. And if you don’t want to deal with it, it’s better to order a paper from an essay writing service. Or at least templates written by professional writers.