Incorporate Text

Below is the entire module on one page.

Once you have found text information in digital format that you want to use in reports or presentations, you may want to move it from the source page to the pages you are creating in a word processor or presentation program. Because the information is in digital format, this process can be as simple as copying and pasting.

Note that formatting from the html document may not be preserved, depending on which browser and which word-processing program you are using. If you are using recent versions of the Internet Explorer browser and Microsoft Word, standard word processing formatting (bold, underline and the like) will be preserved. If you are using other programs, you may have to do some touch up formatting. In general, html formatting (tables, links and the like) will probably not be preserved. But then we usually don't need those in word processing documents.

1. In your browser, place the cursor so that it is an arrow icon (not a hand icon).
2. Then click/drag to select the text you want to transfer.
3. Click on the edit menu of your browser and select "Copy" (or use the CTRL-C or Open Apple-C key combination.)
4. Now click in the window of a word processing document.
5. Click on the edit menu item and select 'Paste" (or use the CTRL-V or Open Apple-V key combination.)

Sometimes you read something that is written so perfectly that you just can not imagine it written any other way.  Often the style of the quote is necessary to keep the proper tone of the paper.  Perhaps you are using web examples.  Whatever your reason, it is easy to copy and paste from the Internet to a word processor.  Your responsibility is to use that freedom wisely.  A report that consists of nothing but quotes is not your report.

Plagiarism is misrepresenting someone else's words as if they were your own.  Plagiarism is not fair to the person who wrote those words in the first place.  It is also illegal.  To avoid plagiarizing give credit whenever you use an important phrase OR string of six words or more from another person's writing. 

The two most common formats for documenting sources are the MLA (Modern Language Association) and APA (American Psychological Association) styles. Online and print sources detail the use of these formats, but at a minimum, each format supplies the author, title, and date of the quoted material. The end of a paper contains full documentation information so that a reader can locate the original source of the quotation. See example 2.

When the material is quoted in the middle of your paragraph, use quotation marks and cite the author in parenthesis. See example 1.

1. back to Washington to give his famous speech "I have a dream." (Martin Luther King Jr., 1963)

2. A complete citation should be located at the end of your report or presentation for each quote.

What are the copyright rules for using text?