Borrow--Don't Steal!

How do you use other people's facts in your own report?

Most authors of informational reports, including reports published in newspapers and magazines, do not rely entirely on what they already know. They find other articles and reports that help them understand what they're writing about. When you write a report or essay, you can use these kinds of texts to help readers understand your topic, too.

How can you use information from other sources in your report? That depends on the information you find. If you have two sources that give you different types of information, you can use one source for part of your paper and one for another part. Look at the two passages below, which give information about arthropods, a group of animals that include insects and spiders.

from aPods Rule!

Over 80 percent of all known animal species are arthropods, a group that includes insects, spiders, scorpions, ticks, mites, centipedes, and millipedes. In the ocean, arthropods include crabs, shrimps, and lobsters. Scientists have identified over 1,170,000 species of arthropods. Many more will probably be discovered over time.

from the USDA website

Insects cause millions of dollars in damage every year to grain and other food products that are stored for use later on. But entomologists--scientists who study insects--say good bugs can help by eating bad bugs. Good insects are Mother Nature's way of controlling insect pests. Agricultural Research Service scientists in Manhattan, Kansas, are taking a closer look at helpful insects because bugs that eat other bugs can help farmers use less insecticide (chemicals that kill insects).

These sources give different types of information, but they can both be used in a report about arthropods. Here's how one writer integrated, or brought together, the information from both sources.

There are lots of different kinds of arthropods in the world. According to the article "aPods Rule!," there are almost two million species of arthropods! Some of these are species people eat, such as crabs and shrimp. But arthropods also cause problems by eating people's food. According to the USDA Web site, insects damage grain and stored food products every year. Scientists are looking at ways to use "good bugs" to help stop these annoying arthropods.