Academic integrity starts with clear source use

Choose the right source-use move

Illustrative paraphrasing case

This fictional learning example is not a real student submission or source to cite. It shows difference between swapping a few words and rebuilding an idea in your own sentence.

Illustrative source claim: “Students who receive specific feedback revise more effectively than students who only receive a score.”

Responsible paraphrase: Specific comments can help students make more useful revisions than a grade alone, because they identify what to change (Author, year).

Revision changes wording and sentence structure, but it still credits original idea. Citation does not disappear because words changed.

Move from a source to a traceable academic sentence

A citation format or language tool cannot decide whether a source supports your point. Choose a source-use move only after you can trace claim, meaning, and your own contribution through full writing process.

1. Check task and course policy. Confirm what assignment, instructor, department, journal, or program permits for sources, citation style, collaboration, translation, AI-assisted revision, quotation, and reference tools.
2. Create a traceable source record. Record author, title, date, stable source details, relevant page or location, exact claim, and why it may matter to question. Do not rely on copied passage without source trail.
3. Choose quote, paraphrase, or summary. Quote when exact wording matters; paraphrase when particular idea matters more than wording; summarize when readers need broad source point. All require attribution when using another author's words or ideas.
4. Read until idea is understood. Read enough context to understand author's point, limits, and conditions. Do not draft from search snippet, secondhand quotation, citation generator output, or sentence whose meaning you cannot explain.
5. Draft in your own analytical voice. Write point paragraph needs to make, then integrate source as evidence, context, contrast, or qualification. Explain how it supports, complicates, or limits reasoning.
6. Mark exact language and attribution. Use quotation marks for retained wording, signal source-based claims, and place citations where readers can see source scope. Reintroduce citations when new paragraph or source makes attribution unclear.
7. Check accuracy, scope, and reference details. Compare paraphrase or summary with original for meaning, context, evidence, limitation, and overstatement. Verify author, date, required locator, title, URL or DOI, and reference-list entry against original source.
8. Complete human submission check. Treat AI output, grammar suggestions, translation, and citation tools as drafts to verify. You remain responsible for source accuracy, attribution, permitted tool use, citations, original analysis, and final submission under local policy.

Fictional learning example: preserve a source trail before drafting

This fictional learning example is invented for practice; it is not a real source record, author, page number, research finding, permission, or text to submit. A fictional writer saves an invented source title with invented location and a note about fictional claim, then decides narrow idea needs a paraphrase rather than exact quotation. Writer drafts from note, compares fictional wording with fictional source, marks an invented distinctive term for quotation if retained, and keeps invented citation beside claim. Writer does not invent page number, author, quote, citation, permission, or source support to complete reference.

Use AI as a revision step, not a source authority

An AI suggestion can help notice literal translation or awkward wording, but cannot decide whether claim is accurate, source supports it, reference is complete, or university permits use. Compare every revision with intended meaning, original source, course policy, and final citation record.

Use authoritative guidance and keep source relationship visible

[APA Style on paraphrases](https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/citations/paraphrasing) explains that a paraphrase restates another author's idea in your own words and still requires citation; it advises keeping source scope clear across sentences and sources. [Purdue OWL](https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/using_research/quoting_paraphrasing_and_summarizing/index.html) distinguishes quotation, paraphrase, and summary by relationship to original wording and scope, and explains that each needs attribution. [University of Pittsburgh Libraries](https://pitt.libguides.com/academicintegrity/academicwriting) recommends connecting quotations, paraphrases, and summaries to your own reasoning and then explaining why source matters; its paraphrasing sequence includes understanding, drafting from notes, comparing accuracy, marking retained terms, and recording source details.