Writing your PhD Thesis – How to quote authorities and experts in your thesis?

Offering quotations from relevant authorities and experts in the subject you are investigating is another useful tool. Authorities and experts can provide factual data, theories, critiques, and other material to strengthen your argument. But be curtain first that your authorities and experts are legitimate and that they are making statements or writing about subjects about which they are competent.

Sometimes authorities write in such a way as to make a powerful impres- sion. When you use authorities, remember to do the following:

THE ACADEMIC WRITER’S TOOLKIT

1 Give their names
2 Give the title of the article of name of the book where you found quote
3 Give the data when the article or book was published
4 Give the page number for the material you quote
5 Check over the quoted material to make sure you have not made any care less typing errors
6 Introduce the quotation by saying something about its importance and relevance to your text, or do this after the quotation

Appeals to authority are useful, but authorities frequently disagree with one another, so a text based only on quotations from authorities is never satisfac tory. Papers or works of that nature, which are just strings of quotations fol- lowing one another, are undesirable because your voice, as an author, tends to be cast into the shadows, and your readers don’t know what you believe or where your analysis is leading.

Let me also say something about plagiarism. All ways be careful to give proper credit for all quotations and any material not your own, so as to avoid plagiarism. If you don’t want to use the precise language of material from someone else, you can paraphrase, but you must mention who wrote it and the details of its publication. As a general rule, don’t use more than three or four words in succession when paraphrasing. If your quote is four lines or more in length, indent this quoted material a type it in a smaller typeface, after identifying the writers and publications details. In recent years, a number of famous writers and scholars have been found guilty of plagiarizing, so it is something that all writers-not just students must be mindful to avoid.