How to Do EVIDENCE & CITATIONS in Essays | In-Text Citations MLA & APA

Welcome back! today I'm going to teach  you how to add evidence to your essays   this is an advanced level writing skill that you  need to know if you go to high school college or   university in an English-speaking country like  the United States I always tell my students that   this is not the most exciting or fun thing that  they're going to learn but it's necessary and   after they learn it they feel more comfortable  in their classes and they get better grades   on their essays so today I'm going to teach you  what evidence is and how to add it to your essays   so first what is evidence? Evidence is  information that proves that something is true   the best example is to think of what happens in a  courtroom a person has been charged with a crime   and the person is on trial but we don't know  if the person committed the crime or not the   lawyer's job is to bring evidence to show that the  person committed the crime or that the person did   not commit the crime in our essay we want to  use evidence to support our ideas you want to   be sure that we can believe the evidence so you  want to look for what we call reliable sources   which are sources that we can trust or that  we know are good sources of information so the   first place that you probably want to look is  your textbook or newspaper articles we usually   think that evidence should be from an expert  or someone who knows a lot about the subject   so how do we use evidence in our essays you  want to think that most of the essay is your   own discussion based on what you know about the  topic so you're going to think about what you   have learned in your class from listening to your  professor discussing with classmates and reading   your book and then you want to discuss the idea  based on that knowledge that you already have   however you're going to use pieces  of evidence in your paragraphs   to help to support or make your ideas stronger  to show that your ideas are true to do that   you want to think that your paragraph should be  mostly your own discussion of the topic and then   there will be some pieces of evidence to support  your ideas so maybe the paragraph has about 25%  of the sentences are evidence definitely not more  than 50% maybe in one paragraph you have one or   two sentences of evidence to support your ideas  it depends on the topic and the type of essay   that you're writing but that's a good general  guideline okay so how to add evidence to your   paragraphs the first thing you're going to do is  find a piece of evidence that supports your ideas   and again you're going to look for evidence  in good sources this can be a sentence or two   sometimes statistics that support your idea for  example if you're writing an essay about your   city you might want to say that the city where you  live is safe well how can you show that it's safe   you might explain that based on your own  experience it is safe like when you walk   outside at night you feel safe but that's really  just your own opinion or your experience so then   you would want to get evidence in this case we  would probably look for statistics about crime   rates to show how many crimes happen in that city  or we might look for numbers that show how safe   your city is compared to another city that would  be a good use of evidence so again the first step   is to look for a piece of evidence you also want  to be sure that the evidence is directly related   to the idea that means that you have to read the  evidence carefully sometimes with evidence this   can be tricky so you just want to be careful  that the evidence supports your idea after you   find the evidence that you want to use it's time  for you to decide if you're going to paraphrase   or quote paraphrase means that you take the idea  from the source and you put it in your essay but   you rewrite the sentence in your own words  paraphrasing in another language is very   difficult so if English is not your first  language you probably need to practice this   it's not easy but you can do it if you practice  quote is different quote means that you take the   sentence from the source and you copy it word  for word exactly and then put it in your essay   and you begin and end the quote with quotation  marks that shows that it is a quote quoting is   much easier because all you have to do is copy the  sentence into your essay and add quotation marks   but we don't use quotes as often as we use  paraphrases we prefer paraphrases in our essay   so when you're deciding should I paraphrase or  quote you're going to choose paraphrasing most   of the time however it is okay to use a quote  in the following three situations number one   the sentence is said with very beautiful or  special language this is common like if you get   the sentence from a book that was written very  beautifully or from a poem or maybe a speech   perhaps if you paraphrase that the beautiful  language will be lost so you want to keep the   original sentence number two the sentence was said  by a famous person if you use a speech that was   said by Barack Obama you will copy the sentence  and use a quote in your essay because you don't   want to change the words that were said by a  famous person number three if the sentence from   the source includes so many very difficult words  and specific terminology that it's very difficult   for you to paraphrase it then you can use a quote  in that case you're going to use a quote to avoid   making mistakes in your paraphrase or writing a  paraphrase that is not clear so now that you've   decided if you're going to paraphrase or quote  it's time to add the evidence to your paragraph   so for this example that I'm going to show you I  am a student in a biology class and I am writing   an essay about the disease malaria we've talked  about it a lot in class and I know enough about   this topic that I can write an essay but I'm  going to need some evidence to support my ideas   for example one of the things I want to say is  that the disease malaria is very serious that it   kills a lot of people so what I did was I went to  my textbook and I looked for a statistic or some   other evidence to show how serious this disease  is and I found this sentence that I want to use   this sentence is directly related to my idea  which is that this is a serious disease so this   evidence works because it shows how many people  it affects around the world or that it's a very   serious and deadly disease so the first thing  I'm going to do is I'm going to decide if I'm   going to paraphrase or quote so for this example  I'm going to paraphrase why well first of all   because paraphrasing is preferred second I'm going  to think about the criteria for quoting is this   said with very beautiful or special language? No. Is  it spoken by a famous person? No. Is this sentence   so difficult with very specific terminology that I  cannot paraphrase it? No. So I'm going to paraphrase   so before I paraphrase I'm going to make sure  that I understand the meaning of the sentence   what does this sentence mean well it means that  when we look at all the infectious diseases around   the world malaria is number five when we think  about the number of people who die so I'm going to   try to say that sentence in my own words just like  I did now when I told you what the sentence means   here's my paraphrase among infectious diseases  worldwide malaria is number five in terms of   the number of people who die so you can see that  my paraphrase is not fancy in fact it's a little   longer than the original sentence which usually is  not really the best type of paraphrase but for now   it's okay because my paraphrase is written in my  own words it's clear and the meaning is the same   as the original sentence next to put the evidence  in my paragraph I need to do one more thing I   need to show where I got this information this  is called a citation a citation is information   about the source to show where I got the evidence  is it from a book or an article and then that way   the reader of the essay my professor can find this  source afterwards the other thing that I need to   know is does my class use MLA style or APA style  there are different ways to make these citations   and you have to know what style your class uses  for English classes we use MLA so in my class   we use MLA but in science classes like biology  they use APA so let me show you what MLA looks   like first we're going to use a signal phrase  to show that evidence is coming and we're going   to include the author's last name and the page  number so here is my sentence with the citation   you can see that I have the name Pakenham et al.  that is the last name of the author but then I   have these two small words et al. what does that  mean that's an abbreviation that means and others   so when you use a citation you're going to use the  last name of the author but if there's more than   one author then you need to follow a rule if there  are two authors you just use the two last names   if there are three or more authors then  you use the last name of the first author   and then you use the abbreviation et al. to mean  and others finally at the end of the sentence we   put the page number in parentheses this is the  page number where I found the evidence so again   the purpose of this is to show that this is not  my idea that I found this evidence in some source   also that way my professor can find this evidence  later the professor can go to the book and look   at the page number to see the information most  science classes use APA style so in APA style it's   a little bit different they don't include the page  number for a paraphrase and instead they include   the year so the year that the book was published  and here is what that would look like okay so now   that you have your evidence in your paragraph  you want to think about what you're going to do   for the rest of your essay and a good writer  doesn't use the same words over and over again   so we're going to try to learn a couple of  other ways to add evidence so that you don't   repeat yourself with according to according to so  I'm going to show you three examples of how you   can do this and we're going to look at MLA style  first so the first one is what we looked at before   according to plus the author comma the paraphrase  and then the page number at the end in the second   one we're going to add the article title according  to pack and ham at all in the article malaria a   portrait of a disease comma the evidence or the  paraphrase and the page number at the end notice   that for an article title we put that in quotation  marks for the last one we're going to begin with   in the article “Malaria a portrait of a  disease” comma Pakenham et al. state that   and the page number at the end notice for  the last one that we're using a verb to show   what the author said you can use state or claim  or show and you always use simple present tense   that's just a tricky thing that you need  to remember even though the author wrote it   in the past we use present tense to show what the  author says when you read it finally I want you   to notice that there is one other option that  is a little bit easier if you've already used   according to a few times then you can use this  other one too and this would be an example where   maybe you introduce the evidence the first time  with according to and then after that you might   use this one in this case you just have the  sentence or the paraphrase and then you just put   the citation at the end of the sentence so here  you can see Pakenham et al. and the page number   at the end of the sentence in parentheses  let's look at these same examples in APA   notice that for the first one we're not going  to include the page number but we're going   to include the year in parentheses that  comes right after the author's last name   according to is not used in APA as often so I'm  going to move on to the next one with the author's   last name and the verb in the article “Malaria a  portrait of a disease” comma Pakenham et al. 2013   state that and the last one we are going to um  do the same thing that I showed you before where   we put the citation at the end of the sentence  but again just notice that you use the last name   comma and the year I suggest that when you write  you have these sentences printed out next to you   so that when you're writing your essay you can  just copy those structures when you add evidence   we're almost finished but I need to show you  one more thing many of your sources are going   to be from articles on the internet and that is  just a little bit different so for an article   on the internet you're going to look for the  author's name if there is no author listed   then you're going to go to the second piece of  information which is the title of the article   articles on the internet don't have page  numbers like books do so you're not going   to use a page number remember that if you're  using APA style you need to include the year   and if there's no year listed on your article  then you're going to use the abbreviation n period   d period which stands for no date so let's look at  an example here's the evidence that I found in an   article on the internet the estimated number  of malaria deaths stood at 405,000 in 2018.   here's my paraphrase: In 2018 the number of  deaths caused by malaria was about 405,000.   so we're going to put this evidence into the  paragraph and I need to first check if there is   an author and I'm going to use the author's last  name if I am using APA I also need to look and see   if there is a year there are no page numbers on  the internet so I don't need to worry about that   when I look for the author's name I notice that  there is no author listed however this article   is from the World Health Organization website the  World Health Organization is an organization or   group of people who wrote this article so I can  actually use that group's name for the author so   the paraphrase would look like this according to  the World Health Organization comma my paraphrase   now again if I'm using APA I would add the year  the last step is that you have to take all of   your sources that you used in your paragraphs and  make a list of them that goes on the last page of   your essay this page is called Works Cited in MLA  it's called References in APA there are a lot of   rules for how to do that but it is something that  you can do but I'm not going to show those to you   today I'll make another video in the future that  will show you how to do that so to sum up here are   the basic things that you need to know about how  to put evidence into your essay first you're going   to look for evidence in reliable sources you want  to make sure that the evidence is directly related   to the idea that you are trying to explain next  you're going to decide if you should paraphrase or   quote remember that paraphrase is more common  and you want to use more paraphrases than quotes   if paraphrasing is very difficult for you just  start with paraphrasing maybe one or two and   then try to practice so that you can do it more  often remember that it is okay to use a quote if   the sentence is said with very beautiful or  special language it was spoken by a famous person   or it has very advanced specific terminology  that is almost impossible for you to paraphrase   next you're going to put that sentence into your  essay but you need to include a citation that   shows where the information came from what is  the source you need to know if your class uses   MLA or APA and then you're going to follow  the rule for how to make the citation   finally don't forget to include the sources  in a list that goes on the last page of your   essay this is called the works cited or  references my last piece of advice for you   is don't feel scared you can do these things  but you just need to pay attention and   go step by step there are lots of websites  that have information about how to do this   so just keep practicing keep trying and you  can do it that's all for today if you have   questions please let me know and I would really  appreciate it if you could give this video a like   or maybe share it with other students that  you know thank you so much and take care!

Channel: Learn Academic English

Views: 25,183

Keywords: how to do citations in APA, how to cite a website article, citations for college students, how to use in-text citations, prevent plagiarism, apa in-text citations, citing sources in mla format, citing sources in apa format, how to cite a book mla, how to add in text citations in apa format, how to add in text citations mla, MLA APA, ESL Writing Lesson advanced, how to add evidence to an essay, ESL essay writing, citation rules, ESL, how to do evidence and citations

Id: P_8x9Ot7E1Y

Length: 19min 58sec (1198 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 27 2020