It's essential to understand the context of communication in college. When you started college, you entered the academic community. And like all communities, academia has values that hold it together. Some of the foundational values held by the academic community include:
As a college student, you’re here to learn. You aren’t expected to be an expert in the field you’re studying yet. So when you’re asked to prepare a research project or enter into a discussion, you will be relying on sources and other authors’ ideas to help inform your thinking, develop an argument, and learn the nuances of the topic. It is essential to distinguish between your original thoughts and opinions and those you’re basing on the ideas of other authors or thinkers.
In the academic community, others’ voices and ideas are acknowledged through citation. Citing sources combines the academic values of intellectual freedom, constructive debate, and recognizing the voices that have come before us. In the academic community, the freedom to make your own evaluation and decisions about the same information is highly valued. Without that freedom, there is no room for the creativity that comes out of it or the constructive debate that comes from various viewpoints. New knowledge cannot be generated without that creativity and discussion, and that debate can’t happen if people engaging in it don’t know where the information is coming from.
Citations within a paper and the corresponding references at the bottom provide a visual representation of the scholarly conversation and also make it clear which parts are the words and thoughts of the author and which are the thoughts and ideas of others.