Use, Credit, and Disclose Your Sources Honestly

You found the sources. You checked them. Now comes the part most people get wrong: turning that work into an answer that’s honest. It’s surprisingly easy to slip. You drop a quote with no credit, swap a few words and call it “your own,” state an opinion as if it were proof, or hide what you weren’t sure about. None of that takes bad intent. It just takes not knowing where the lines are.

If you write, research, or make decisions from what you read, those lines matter. Attribute carelessly and you plagiarize without meaning to. Blur evidence and opinion and people stop trusting you. Hide your gaps and one discovery sinks your whole answer. The fix isn’t more talent. It’s a handful of habits anyone can learn.

This short course is the third in the Information and Evidence Literacy module. The first two helped you find and verify sources; this one shows you how to use them honestly. It’s built for true beginners, defines every term as it appears, and prepares you directly for Project Step 3, where you’ll deliver an attributed synthesis, a reference list, and a disclosure statement.

Sign up now and your work will stop looking borrowed and start being trusted!