Citing Sources Quotes

I cannot say how strongly I object to people using other people's writing as research. Research is non-fiction, especially for horror, fantasy, science fiction. Do not take your research from other people's fiction. Just don't.

If you steal from one author it's plagiarism; if you steal from many it's research.

I caution against beginning or ending a quotation with ellipses.

Quoting, like smoking, is a dirty habit to which I am devoted.

Be wary of cutting and pasting research nuggets directly into your manuscript.

I now rely on a scanner, which reproduces the passages I want to cite, and then I keep my own comments on those books in a separate file so that I will never confuse the two again.

Most bloggers have no institutional credibility, and so they must build it, by linking transparently, and allowing you to easily double check their work. But more than anything, because linking sources is such an easy thing to do, and the motivations for avoiding links are so dubious, I've detected myself using a new rule of thumb: if you don't link to primary sources, I just don't trust you.

In quoting of books, quote such authors as are usually read; others you may read for your own satisfaction, but not name them.

You don't want to become guilty of plagiarism by letting someone else's words get inadvertently mixed in with your own. If you do feel the need to paste in a block of research while you're writing, be sure to highlight the copied text in a different color so you can go back and remove or rewrite it entirely later.

I think references, where they fit organically, are great. It's great to do a show that's real and relatable, and so much of what is real, is using real things and instances that are specific. Specificity is the best tool you can have, as a writer.

Very commonly I get queries. Somebody saw something of mine on YouTube and of course if there is a talk on YouTube, there aren't any footnotes - and they want to know why did you say this. Well if they bothered to look up something in print, they would've seen why I said that. If they ask for evidence, I just say well take a look and mention something they can read and that usually ends the conversation.