Quick Tip: Attribute your Sources, Check your Facts

Even if you don’t know the original source for a fact or a quotation, you need to indicate that it’s not your idea.

Otherwise, your audience will assume you are either too dim to know that you’re borrowing from someone else, or that you are too unethical to acknowledge the debt.

Either way, you have everything to gain and nothing to lose.

If you have time, track the information back to its first author. And for facts and statistics, it’s worth doing a quick check about the validity of the statement.

Commonly-accepted pseudo facts like “You should drink eight glasses of water a day,” and “Lemmings will follow each other off a cliff,” have been repeated so often that they are taken as gospel.

You spend a lot of time and energy building up your image. Don’t undercut it by being sloppy with the way you express your ideas.