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Writing College Papers: Step 10

This guide helps students write effective college papers, essay exams, and paragraphs. It was produced in fulfillment of a Designs for Learning grant at Anne Arundel Community College by Professor Paul Gabriel-Tucci and Professor Janice Lathrop.

Help Is Available

Anne Arundel Community College offers free writing help to students who are enrolled in classes, through The Writing Center and through Smarthinking.com.

Need help citing your sources correctly?  Check the site at the Owl at Purdue or the AACC Citation Guide for help.

These sources will not write your papers for you or proofread your work, but they do offer invaluable assistance.

Double-Check Your Summaries and Quotations

Each of your support paragraphs is likely to contain support in two forms: summary/paraphrase and quotation.

With summaries/paraphrases, you put the source’s ideas in your own words, and you must give credit to the source for the ideas you use in your paper.

With quotations, you quote the source’s exact words, putting them in quotation marks, and you must give credit to the source for the words that you use in your paper.

For advice on how summary/paraphrase and quotations can help your paragraphs, see the Writing a Paragraph? box at the left of this page.

For advice on how quotations can help your paragraphs, see the Writing a Paragraph? box at the left of this page.

For advice on one way to make quotations fit into your paragraphs, see the Writing a Paragraph? box at the left of this page.

How to properly document summary and quotation is discussed in Step 11: Double-check Your Documentation (to Avoid Plagiarism).