Your essay will be based on information in the listening and reading sections of the CAEL Assessment. You will be expected to demonstrate your understanding of the listening and reading sections as well as to weave those ideas together in a coherent manner. There are two ways that you can include information from the listening and reading texts. The first is to paraphrase this information, which means using your own words to express ideas from the listening and reading sections. The second is to quote directly from the texts, using the same words in your own writing. In both cases, it is essential that you show where the information in your essay is from. It is not acceptable to use ideas from another source and present them as your own. That is considered a form of academic dishonesty known as plagiarism, which is a serious offense that could result in failing grades or even expulsion.
When paraphrasing ideas you must indicate which reading or listening text is the source of your information. Letting the reader know where your information originated is referred to as "citing your sources." There are two ways that you can cite your sources. The simplest is to mention the source at the end of the paraphrased section. If you have paraphrased information from one of the reading sections, you can write (Reading 1) or (Reading 2). If the information comes from the listening section, you can write (Listening). You can also introduce your paraphrase with a phrase that identifies its source. Below are some examples of such phrases:
- According to the lecture, ...
- Reading 2 states that, ...
- As noted in Reading 1, ...
Using such introductory phrases can serve to better integrate the material from the reading and listening sections as they provide the reader clear sign posts that you are about to relay information from a particular source. When the citation appears at the end of a long paragraph, the reader may be confused as to which ideas in the text are taken from a reading or listening section, and which are the writer's own.
Below are examples of a paraphrase of information from Reading 1, in which the source is cited in two different ways.
Example 1
- Groups of zebra mussels can connect to almost anything and rapidly grow in number and size. They can block industrial water pipes with the result that the amount of water getting through is cut by half. (Reading 1)
Example 2
- As explained in Reading 1, groups of zebra mussels can connect to almost anything and rapidly grow in number and size. They can block industrial water pipes with the result that the amount of water getting through is cut by half.
In both examples, the source of the information is clearly attributed to Reading 1. No quotation marks are required since most of the words in this passage are the writer's own. There are some words that come from the original text, such as those that identify the main subject: zebra mussels. It is not possible to replace "zebra mussels" with other words without losing specificity of meaning. One could not merely say "shellfish" or "sea creatures" since these words are too general; the readings and lecture are concerned with zebra mussels only and not shellfish or sea creatures in general. It is acceptable to include such specific terms without using quotation marks. Except for the words "zebra mussels," note how different the first sentence in the example is from the original text:
- Zebra mussels attach themselves to any available solid underwater surface, e.g. boat hulls, motors, buoys, water pipes, docks, rocks, reefs, and even other animals such as clams and crayfish. They quickly build up on solid surfaces in large colonies, up to several hundred thousand per square meter in Lake Erie. (Paragraph 5, Reading 1)
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