Write a rough draft of an essay, 250 words, that develops and answers a research question of your choice.

Quotations from primary sources have an important place when writing a research paper. We use quotes to prove and support our ideas. A quotation from a personal interview with an authority on your subject matter helps support your argument and can have a dramatic impact on your paper. Quotations are also necessary to add interest and an authoritative voice to your work. Proper use of quotations and documentation is vital to the success of your paper. Most of your research will come from secondary sources, such as books, periodicals, and the Internet. When you are gathering and organizing your research, you will be tempted to use more quotations and less paraphrasing because it will seem easier at first, but the reverse is more likely. You will spend more time trying to tie the information together and your paper will be wordy and unorganized if you rely too heavily on quotations. Train yourself to paraphrase, or rewrite in your own words, the source material passages as you take notes while conducting the research. This will give you a better understanding of the material. Put the key words that you have copied in quotation marks so that you will remember to cite them as being quoted directly. If you do copy and paste from a source, try to reword it soon afterwards without looking at it so that when you are ready to write your rough draft, the paper will flow. When it is necessary to copy long passages of technical data, be certain to place quotation marks at the beginning and at the end, and citing the source of the quote.Paraphrases vs. Summaries:Paraphrases generally allow for more detail than summaries. A summary is shorter, usually less than half of the original’s size. A summary may be a single sentence but is written in your own words. A summary is broader in scope than a paraphrase. A summary captures the key point, event, or idea of a passage. A paraphrase may also summarize part of a passage, but it is primarily a rewording of the passage to bring out details in your own words. How you paraphrase a quote or series of events can be used to emphasize certain ideas.Here’s an original passage from Ha Jin’s “The Bane of the Internet”:”As it is, I’m still renting and have to save for the down payment on a small apartment somewhere in Queens. My family always assumes that I can pick up cash right and left here. No matter how hard I explain, they can’t see how awful my job at a sushi house is. I waitress ten hours a day, seven days a week. My legs are swollen when I punch out at ten p.m. I might never be able to buy an apartment at all. I’m eager to leave my job and start something of my own—a snack bar or a nail salon or a video store. I must save every penny.”A paraphrase of the passage is:The narrator rents but would like to buy an apartment in Queens. Her family assumes that she has an easy time earning money. They don’t understand how hard and painful the work is at the sushi house for “ten hours a day, seven days a week” in order to earn enough money to start her own business.Notice that the brief section of word-for-word material is quoted inside of the paraphrased passage. Regardless of if material is quoted in the paraphrase or not, all paraphrased information must be properly cited.A summary of the same passage is:The narrator’s family does not understand how hard she works. They disregard her desire to save money to buy an apartment and start her own business (Jin).The summary is approximately one fourth the length of the original passage. All summaries must be properly cited.Source CitationsThe Modern Language Association (MLA) has developed a guide that is commonly used throughout the United States and other countries to document sources used in one’s writing. These references within the text of your paper are called citations.For example, Ha Jin’s passage from page two would be documented as follows:”The narrator expresses her frustration by telling the audience: “My family always assumes that I can pick up cash right and left here. No matter how hard I explain, they can’t see how awful my job at a sushi house is” (Jin 2).”Notice how the period is placed on the outside of the parenthesis, not inside the quotation mark.If Jin’s name is introduced once, you can drop the use of his name again in the parenthetical citation, as long as you don’t need to cite a different source between the two Jin citations.Ha Jin’s narrator expresses her frustration by telling the audience: “My family always assumes that I can pick up cash right and left here. No matter how hard I explain, they can’t see how awful my job at a sushi house is” (2).It is very important to review each type of citation and to be exact in its use. To move a punctuation mark or change the location of parentheses will change the meaning of the citation.