Summary: Annoying ways people use sources

This essay written by Kyle D. Stedman talks about six annoying ways people use sources and how to fix them:

1. Armadillo Roadkill: Using a quotation without introducing it first.
Fix: Signal your readers that a quotation is coming and state who the quotation came from.

2. Dating Spider-Man: Starting or ending a paragraph with a quotation.
Fix: Guide your readers to the quotation and then interpret it.

3. Uncle Barry and His Encyclopedia of Useless Information: Using too many quotations in series.
Fix: Return to each quotation and decide why it's there.

4. Am I in the Right Movie: Failing to integrate a quotation into the grammar of the preceding sentence.
Fix: Read your essay out loud to someone else.

5. I Can't Find the Stupid Link: No connection between the first letter of a parenthetical citation and the first letter of a works cited entry.
Fix: Make sure that the first word of the works cited entry is the word you use in your in-text citation.

6. I Swear I Did Some Research: Dropping in a citation without making it clear what information came from that source.
Fix: Write the sentences before the citation that will tell your readers what information came from where.