Intermediate Year Integrating Sources Quiz

This quiz is designed to develop your skills in paraphrasing and to think more carefully about how we use quotations. These skills will help you show intellectual engagement with the scholarship and communicate your argument effectively. You are also welcome, and indeed encouraged, to take the previous year quiz if you would like a refresher, and you can take the quiz as many times as you like!

1. Out of the following scenarios, when might a direct quote be more useful than a paraphrase?

When the exact wording is important to your argument e.g. the phrasing is being analysed, or an analytical category is being discussed, or it sums up the point being made.

When we want to avoid accusations of plagiarism, because a paraphrase twists the historian’s meaning and misrepresents their work.

When you want to show that you have done the reading and use it in your essay, otherwise they won’t know that you’ve engaged with the historiography.

In the next few questions you are going to be given a paraphrase of the following work of secondary literature, and decide whether this is a good paraphrase, or could be improved.

From Natalie Thomlinson, Race, Ethnicity and the Women's Movement in England 1968-1993 (Basingstoke, 2016), p. 100:

‘As such, this list in itself demonstrates the internationalism of their outlook. Many of the women whose oral histories have been used for this project talked of the inﬂuence of the Black Panther movement in its American incarnation, with several speciﬁcally remembering reading George Jackson’s Soledad Brother. [157] Likewise, one of the most famous supporters of the Soledad brothers, Angela Davis, was a particularly important ﬁgure for many Black women’s activists in the UK as well as the US.’

2. Paraphrase 1:

‘Black women activists may have rejected the label of ‘feminist’ in late twentieth-century Britain because they were also influenced by broader civil rights activism around the world, especially in North America. In oral accounts from such women, analysed by Nathalie Thomlinson, the Black Panther movement in the USA and supporters of it, like Angela Davis, were often mentioned as influential. ^[1]’

This is a good paraphrase because it is using its own words to summarise Thomlinson’s point, relating it to our own question.

This is a poor paraphrase because it doesn’t include all the information that was in the original quote, and does not accurately replicate what Thomlinson says.

3. Paraphrase 2:

‘Black women activists may have rejected the label of ‘feminist’ in late twentieth-century Britain because of the internationalism of their outlook. Many women whose oral histories were analysed by Nathalie Thomlinson talked of the influence of the Black Panther movement in America, and Angela Davis was an important figure for Black women in the UK. ^[1]’

This is a good paraphrase because it is close to what Thomlinson actually said, and links it to the specific question, with a footnote.

This is a poor paraphrase because the wording is often identical or too close to Thomlinson’s exact words – but no quote marks are used.

4. Paraphrase 3:

‘Black women activists may have rejected the label of ‘feminist’ in late twentieth-century Britain because they were influenced by broader civil rights activism around the world like the Black Panther movement in the USA. This movement and its supporters, like Angela Davis, were influential.’

This is a good paraphrase because it gets to the point very quickly, and shows the writer has evidence for their point.

This is a poor paraphrase because it does not make it clear that we are using Thomlinson’s work to make this point, or which publication – there’s no reference!

In the next three questions you are going to be reading over drafts of an essay where the student is trying to make the same exact point by directly quoting the following work of secondary literature. Decide whether their use of the direct quote would help them earn the highest marks.

From Glenn Burgess, ‘Radicalism and the English Revolution’, in English Radicalism, 1550-1850, ed. by Glenn Burgess and Matthew Festenstein (Cambridge University Press; Cambridge, 2007), pp.62-86 (p.63):

‘“Radicalism” is thus an intolerable anachronism, which must distort the phenomena that it purports to describe.’

5. Attempt 1:

‘Even many of the groups identified as radical described themselves as restoring or purifying, not as seeking to completely overturn the status quo. Glenn Burgess thereby supports Conal Condren’s conclusion that describing anyone in the seventeenth century as ‘“Radical” is an intolerable anachronism,’ which distorts reality.^[1]’

This is a well-integrated direct quote because they are using quote marks and a reference. It reads nicely.

They need to try again because the direct quote is not accurate, they have changed a word so that it better fits the grammatical structure of the sentence.

6. Attempt 2:

‘Even many of the groups identified as radical described themselves as restoring or purifying. For historians like Glenn Burgess, ‘“Radicalism” is thus an intolerable anachronism, which must distort the phenomena that it purports to describe.’ ^[1]’

This is a well-integrated direct quote because the quote is accurate, it reads well, and it is clear whose ideas we are discussing. Long direct quotes are most efficient.

They need to try again because although the quote is accurate and it reads well, not all of the direct quote is necessary to making the point.

7. Attempt 3:

‘Even many of the groups identified as radical described themselves as restoring or purifying, not as seeking to completely overturn the status quo. For historians like Glenn Burgess, ‘“Radicalism” is thus an intolerable anachronism,’ which distorts what ‘it purports to describe.’ ^[1]’

This is a well-integrated direct quote because the sentence structure is grammatically correct when moving from paraphrase to direct quote, and it uses only what is necessary from the original text to get its point across. It is also clear from the set-up why the historian has reached this conclusion.

They need to try again because they’ve interrupted the direct quote with their own paraphrase and are therefore misrepresenting the scholar’s work. It’s also too long, they need to reduce their word count!

8. Let’s think about self-plagiarism. When we are not being asked to specifically reflect on our own work in an assignment, what steps can we take to avoid self-plagiarism? (select all that apply)

If in doubt, choose a completely different topic area to one we’ve written an essay on before.

Cite our older essays like we would any other piece of secondary literature.

Change a few words to a similar word, so that it means the same thing, but the plagiarism detector won’t spot it.

Make sure we are not using the exact same wording, and making the exact same point, that we made in a previous essay – check older essays if necessary!

9. Sometimes we do not have access to a primary source, but there is a perfect quote from it in the argument of another historian. When this happens, which of the following is the best way to cite the source?

As cited in K. J. Kesselring, ‘“A Cold Pye for the Papistes”: Constructing and Containing the Northern Rising of 1569’, Journal of British Studies, 43 (2004), 417-443 (437).

John Phillips, A Friendly Larum, or faithful warning to the true hearted subjects of England (London, 1570), as quoted in K. J. Kesselring, ‘“A Cold Pye for the Papistes”: Constructing and Containing the Northern Rising of 1569’, Journal of British Studies, 43 (2004), 417-443 (437).

Kesselring, ‘“A Cold Pye for the Papistes”: Constructing and Containing the Northern Rising of 1569’, Journal of British Studies, 43 (2004), 417-443 (n.71).

John Phillips, A Friendly Larum, or faithful warning to the true hearted subjects of England (London, 1570).

10. Why should we try to avoid quotes within direct quotes? e.g. Kesselring uses the example of John Phillips whose publication was written ‘to comfort those disquieted by the “papistes which mutter there and here, as opportunity serveth their turns”’. ^[1] (select all that apply)

Because it is usually less efficient than paraphrasing, as both the historian, and the source they are quoting, are trying to make different points to those we are trying to make.

Because it will make our footnotes super long as we will have to cite both the source we read, and the source they are quoting. This will really affect our analysis.

Because it is just really ugly on the page, and hard to read, and a convincing essay is 90% style over substance.

Because we are relying on the historian’s analysis of the other source, not the quote they provide, to make our point. We don’t know what the rest of the quoted source says.

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Department of History

Intermediate Year Integrating Sources Quiz

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