Tuesday, December 15, 2009

When referencing do I have to footnote every sentence?

My teacher said I need to use footnotes if I got the information from somewhere.





So for my introduction in my sci lab I need to footnote every sentence? b/c I did not 'discover' the info.When referencing do I have to footnote every sentence?
No, for basic information that you got from somewhere you do not need to footnote everything. You only need to footnote something if you took it directly (or only slightly changed; quotes) or you find something that is pretty unique and you couldn't find easily (a specific measurement or definition or something).





And, if you have a lot of stuff you need to footnote from the same source all in a row, you can just do one footnote for all of it at the end of the paragraph/sentences.When referencing do I have to footnote every sentence?
You shouldn't have to do every line. If you are using that much information from somewhere else, then you need to go back over what you are trying to write about and think of a way to paraphrase it into your own words so you aren't using as many direct quotes.
Generally, footnotes are only necessary when the person reading your report may want to verify the information that you used to prepare the report. Footnotes are also necessary if you a paraphrasing someone else's work.





It's a lot of common sense. If you did the work or had the idea then it's your work. If, on the other hand, you got the idea or the expansion on an idea, from someone else then you need to provide a footnote to that reference.

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