0

Example of what I want to address:

"For characterizing emotions, either for synthesis or for recognition, suitable emotional speech database is a necessary prerequisite (Ververidis and Kotropoulos 2006). An important issue to be considered in evaluating the emotional speech systems is the quality of the databases used to develop and assess the performance of the systems (Ayadi et al. 2011)."

I am an undergraduate working on my final project. I am not sure if it is because of the way I work, but I am finding myself time and time again in the process of quoting some text I found that is exactly what I need, and that specific paragraph or phrase comes from somewhere else.

I get that is very useful, in order to get a better understanding of the paper, to follow and read said sources. But I find overwhelmed under the amount of sources most paper provide, and I feel like it makes sense at some point to stop digging and write something about it.

I find two options and I do not want to be dishonest at all, it's just that sometimes I don't know what is the proper way of doing things.

A) I could quote the paragraph entirely, and with the proper notation, show where I got it from. For example: "In [source A] is stablished that a database is a prerequisite and that the quality is an important issue to be considered"

B) I could say the same, but using either both sources, or just the one addressed in the text, since it's where apparently the info comes from (AND source number 0, where I am getting the explanation, is been referenced anyway). Example: "In [source B1] is stablished that a database is a prerequisite and in source [B2] that the quality is an important issue to be considered".

What is the proper way of addressing this? I don't want to sound lazy but am I being lazy by not following every source that sustains certain ideas/phrase I am writing in my text?

Improve this question
2
  • 2
    Two pieces of advice I was given as an undergrad: never quote verbatim and always cite the primary source. Choose option B; it takes longer but it's much better academic practice.
    – astronat supports the strike
    Commented Dec 3, 2016 at 18:42
  • @astronat, I can't imagine following the rule to "never quote verbatim". It's often necessary or at least better to quote verbatim and it avoids the possibility that you ever paraphrase without citing. Certainly, it shouldn't be a huge percentage of the work, otherwise, what are you writing a paper for, but it's often very necessary.
    – Red Anne
    Commented Feb 9, 2023 at 6:01

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
4

It's definitely easy to get overwhelmed with all of the sources/papers available. I'm a graduate student and it still happens -- there's always lots to read and never the time to read it all.

Nevertheless, the proper thing to do here if you wish to cite the information in (Ververidis and Kotropoulos 2006) is to read that paper and use it. That doesn't mean you have to read it in-depth, but you should at least skim it. The same goes for other papers.

There's a couple of reasons for this:

  1. Remember the point of a citation is to give credit where credit is due. That means you give credit to the original author, not someone who summarized their idea.
  2. What's to say that the authors of the summary correctly summarized the idea? It's (generally) safer for you to go straight to the source.

A notable exception to this rule might be when reading a survey paper/book. These provide overviews of an entire domain -- if you're not actually exploring that domain in your own writing, the survey paper can be an acceptable way of citing an idea. That being said -- it's always preferable to cite the original source.

Improve this answer
4
  • Yes, point number two is absolutely why the question ocurred to me, I was like, I'm basically trusting someone to have summarized the idea properly. I mean, everyone I read has years of knowledge and experience compared to me, but still... Thanks for the exception since I actually just encountered an example of this!
    – keont
    Commented Dec 3, 2016 at 19:45
  • keont, note that @tonysdg said might and that "it's always preferable to cite the original source." It's not really an exception in my opinion. For me the only exceptions would be when the original is simply unavailable (it's a reference to something even your university library can't find due to age and obscurity) or it's in a foreign language that you aren't proficient in and the citation in the secondary work is the only available translation.
    – Red Anne
    Commented Feb 9, 2023 at 5:56
  • keont, also you should do @tonysdg the courtesy of accepting their response unless you find it inadequate or are still waiting on others.
    – Red Anne
    Commented Feb 9, 2023 at 5:59
  • Sigh, I just realized this post was 7 years old. <facepalm>
    – Red Anne
    Commented Feb 9, 2023 at 6:03

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .