{"id":323,"date":"2025-09-15T13:42:48","date_gmt":"2025-09-15T13:42:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/libraryresources.nse.org.ng\/professionalandtechnicalcommunication\/chapter\/13-3-ethical-principles-for-choosing-and-using-sources\/"},"modified":"2026-03-16T14:19:47","modified_gmt":"2026-03-16T14:19:47","slug":"13-3-ethical-principles-for-choosing-and-using-sources","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/libraryresources.nse.org.ng\/professionalandtechnicalcommunication\/chapter\/13-3-ethical-principles-for-choosing-and-using-sources\/","title":{"raw":"13.3 Ethical Principles for Choosing and Using Sources","rendered":"13.3 Ethical Principles for Choosing and Using Sources"},"content":{"raw":"
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Students are often concerned with the details of correct citation\u2014when to include an author\u2019s name in parentheses, how to format a references section, how to indicate a quotation within a quotation\u2014and while these are all important and helpful to know, it is more important to understand the larger ethical principles that guide choosing and using sources. Here are a few of these larger ideas to keep in mind as you select and synthesize your sources:<\/p>\n

You must represent the topic or discipline you are writing about fairly<\/strong>.<\/strong>\u00a0If nine out of ten sources agree that evidence shows the middle class in the United States is shrinking, it is unethical to use only the tenth source that argues it is growing without also acknowledging the minority status of that source.<\/p>\n

You must represent the individual source fairly.\u00a0<\/strong>If a source acknowledges that a small segment of the middle class in the United States is growing but most of the middle class is shrinking, it is unethical to suggest that the former is the writer\u2019s main point.<\/p>\n

You must acknowledge bias in your sources.<\/strong>\u00a0While they may be credible, it is unethical to represent sources that offer extreme political views as if these views are mainstream.<\/p>\n

You must cite all sources<\/strong>.<\/strong> Using a dictionary definition or encyclopedia article is still considered utilizing a source: if you use exact words, you need quotation marks. If you paraphrase, you still need a citation.\u00a0Using common\/popular sources does not mean the information is \u201ccommon knowledge.\u201d<\/p>\n

You must summarize and paraphrase in your own words.\u00a0<\/strong>A summary or paraphrase must be completely in your own words and sentence structure. Be sure to give credit where credit is due: clearly distinguish what work and words belong to another and what work and words are yours.<\/p>\n

This section is adapted from the chapter on Plagiarism<\/span><\/a>\u00a0in Howdy or Hello? Technical and Professional Communication<\/span><\/a>\u00a0Copyright \u00a9 2022 by\u00a0Matt McKinney, Kalani Pattison, Sarah LeMire, Kathy Anders, and Nicole Hagstrom-Schmidt\u00a0is licensed under a\u00a0Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License<\/span><\/a>, except where otherwise noted.<\/p>\n\n<\/div>","rendered":"

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Students are often concerned with the details of correct citation\u2014when to include an author\u2019s name in parentheses, how to format a references section, how to indicate a quotation within a quotation\u2014and while these are all important and helpful to know, it is more important to understand the larger ethical principles that guide choosing and using sources. Here are a few of these larger ideas to keep in mind as you select and synthesize your sources:<\/p>\n

You must represent the topic or discipline you are writing about fairly<\/strong>.<\/strong>\u00a0If nine out of ten sources agree that evidence shows the middle class in the United States is shrinking, it is unethical to use only the tenth source that argues it is growing without also acknowledging the minority status of that source.<\/p>\n

You must represent the individual source fairly.\u00a0<\/strong>If a source acknowledges that a small segment of the middle class in the United States is growing but most of the middle class is shrinking, it is unethical to suggest that the former is the writer\u2019s main point.<\/p>\n

You must acknowledge bias in your sources.<\/strong>\u00a0While they may be credible, it is unethical to represent sources that offer extreme political views as if these views are mainstream.<\/p>\n

You must cite all sources<\/strong>.<\/strong> Using a dictionary definition or encyclopedia article is still considered utilizing a source: if you use exact words, you need quotation marks. If you paraphrase, you still need a citation.\u00a0Using common\/popular sources does not mean the information is \u201ccommon knowledge.\u201d<\/p>\n

You must summarize and paraphrase in your own words.\u00a0<\/strong>A summary or paraphrase must be completely in your own words and sentence structure. Be sure to give credit where credit is due: clearly distinguish what work and words belong to another and what work and words are yours.<\/p>\n

This section is adapted from the chapter on Plagiarism<\/span><\/a>\u00a0in Howdy or Hello? Technical and Professional Communication<\/span><\/a>\u00a0Copyright \u00a9 2022 by\u00a0Matt McKinney, Kalani Pattison, Sarah LeMire, Kathy Anders, and Nicole Hagstrom-Schmidt\u00a0is licensed under a\u00a0Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License<\/span><\/a>, except where otherwise noted.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"menu_order":3,"template":"","meta":{"pb_show_title":"","pb_short_title":"","pb_subtitle":"","pb_authors":[],"pb_section_license":""},"chapter-type":[],"contributor":[],"license":[],"class_list":["post-323","chapter","type-chapter","status-publish","hentry"],"part":318,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/libraryresources.nse.org.ng\/professionalandtechnicalcommunication\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/libraryresources.nse.org.ng\/professionalandtechnicalcommunication\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/libraryresources.nse.org.ng\/professionalandtechnicalcommunication\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/chapter"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libraryresources.nse.org.ng\/professionalandtechnicalcommunication\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/libraryresources.nse.org.ng\/professionalandtechnicalcommunication\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/323\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":324,"href":"https:\/\/libraryresources.nse.org.ng\/professionalandtechnicalcommunication\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/323\/revisions\/324"}],"part":[{"href":"https:\/\/libraryresources.nse.org.ng\/professionalandtechnicalcommunication\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/parts\/318"}],"metadata":[{"href":"https:\/\/libraryresources.nse.org.ng\/professionalandtechnicalcommunication\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/323\/metadata\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/libraryresources.nse.org.ng\/professionalandtechnicalcommunication\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"chapter-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libraryresources.nse.org.ng\/professionalandtechnicalcommunication\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapter-type?post=323"},{"taxonomy":"contributor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libraryresources.nse.org.ng\/professionalandtechnicalcommunication\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/contributor?post=323"},{"taxonomy":"license","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libraryresources.nse.org.ng\/professionalandtechnicalcommunication\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/license?post=323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}