Discovery and Attribution: You Want a Piece of This?

Logging Evidence

Now you have your questions and your focus for your project. You are ready to begin recording the evidence that will be in your presentation. You want to be sure to keep track of your evidence carefully, because if it gets misplaced or confused, then you could end up walking the walk of plagiarism shame.

First, revisit the topic information and research questions for our video game sample.

Evidence to support this topic can be collected in two ways:

  • As DIRECT QUOTES (see the first entry in the evidence log below) with quotation marks denoting that you are using the exact words from the source.
  • As PARAPHRASE OR SUMMARY in your own words (see the second entry in the evidence log below) without quotation marks.
  1. Enter each piece of evidence into the evidence table. Be sure to put quotation marks around direct quotes.
  2. Create a source card for every source in the evidence log.
    Source cards can be downloaded here:
    Research Source Cards (PDF)
    Research Source Cards (DOC)

Evidence Log

Type of Evidence Evidence Author Title Page Location Research Question
Statistic "Of the 500 children polled, more than one half of the boys played video games they themselves considered violent." Michalski, Susan Video Vipers 12-28 MCCC Library What kind of violence is portrayed in these games?
Anecdote One boy said he thought he could jump and kick because his avatar could, but he fell and broke his arm. Andrews, Robert "Affects of Video Violence on Aggression in Children" --- www.thatsite.com How do psychologists study the relationship between violent behavior and influences?

Download a copy of the Evidence Log. Use this log to record your own sources and evidence. You will use this later to make sure that your Works Cited page is accurate.

Next, we will discuss how to embed quotations and paraphrasing into your text and use PARENTHETICAL CITATION when you draft. Then, we will practice using the source cards to create a WORKS CITED page.

For this assignment, you will be using MLA formatting. In MLA format, the PARENTHETICAL CITATION and the WORKS CITED page work together to provide ATTRIBUTION. The WORKS CITED page gives the details for finding the source in case someone wants to retrace your research journey. The PARENTHETICAL CITATION tells the reader where each piece of evidence came from (based on sources on the works cited page).