UNIT II

LOCATING MAIN IDEAS

ABECE: Understanding and Locating the Thesis Statement
The ‘thesis statement presents or describes the point of an essay.
Thesis statement is usually presented in the abstract or executive summary or found at the last part of
the introduction. It is written in a declarative sentence.
In some cases, the thesis statement located at the last part of the introduction is replaced with a
purpose statement. Unlike the thesis statement, the purpose statement is introduced by signal phrases
that announce the purpose, scope, or direction of the text as well as its focus. (e.g. “This study
examined…”, “This paper examines…”, “The aim of this essay is to…” etc.)

OSTREA: Strategies in Locating the Thesis Statement

The following strategies are also useful in helping you locate the thesis statement of a text.

Read the title of the text and make inferences on its purpose.
If the text has no abstract or executive summary, read the first few paragraphs as the thesis statement
is usually located there.
In other cases, you may also check the conclusion where authors sum up and review their main points.

CASSION & NABONG: Understanding and Locating Topic Sentences

The topic sentence presents or describes the point of the paragraph; it is the main idea of a paragraph. It can
be located in the beginning, middle, or last part of the paragraph.

CASSION & NABONG: Strategies in Locating the Thesis Statement

The following strategies are useful in helping you locate the topic sentence in a paragraph.

Read the first sentence of the paragraph very carefully because most authors state their topic sentence
in the beginning of the paragraph.
Browse the sentences in the paragraph to identify what they describe. The sentence that best describes
the topic of the paragraph is the topic sentence.
Find the concept or idea being tackled, which in colloquial term is the “big word” in the paragraph.
The sentence that defines the big word is usually the topic sentence.
Identify the purpose of the paragraph. The sentence that presents or describes the purpose is the topic
sentence.
Observe the writing style of the author. Focus specifically on where he/she usually place his/her topic
sentence.

EVALUATING SOURCES
DETABLAN: Criteria in Evaluating Sources
Relevance of the Source to the Research Topic
- How well does the source support your topic?
- You can check the title, table of contents, summary/abstract, introduction, or headings of the text
to have a sense of its content.
Authority/Author’s Qualifications
- Is the author’s name identified?
- Is the author’s background, education, or training related to the topic?
- Is he or she a professor in a reputable university?
- What are his/her publications?
 - Is the contract information of the author available?
- If the source does not have an author, think twice before using it.
- You can check the university’s website to make sure that the professor is associated with the
university.
- Publications from professors are usually peer-reviewed and have undergone a strenuous
publication process and are therefore reliable.
- Legitimate academic texts must include citations as a requirement for publication. Citations
demonstrate that the writer has thoroughly researched the topic and is not plagiarizing the
material.
Currency/Date Publication
- What is the date of the publication?
- In most fields, the data from older publications may no longer be valid. As much as possible, the
date of publication should be at most five years earlier.
Contents/Accuracy of Information
- Does the author have a lot of citations in his or her text and or a bibliography or work cited
section?
- What is the tone and style of writing?
- Is the information inaccurate?
- Is the information obviously biased or prejudiced?
- The tone or the attitude of the author towards his/her subject and writing style must be formal.
There should be no words or phrases (such as colloquial words and contracted words) that are
unacceptable in English formal writing.
- You do not want to use a source that is disputable, so make sure to verify your findings with
multiple sources.

CITING SOURCES

GARRIDO: Purpose for Citing Sources

To give credit to the original author of a work
- Plagiarism is a serious offense in which someone takes and uses the ideas, information, concepts,
arguments, or information of someone else, intentionally or unintentionally, without proper
citations.
To promote scholarly writing
- Scholarly writing means that you are able to exhaustively use related and existing ideas,
information, concepts or arguments of an expert and to properly attribute these to the original
source.
To help your target audience identify your original source
- More often than not, your target audience or readers want to either verify the information or learn
more about the information from the original source. With you proper citations, you target
audience can easily identify the location of the original source used in your paper.

MACO: Forms of Citation

There are various styles or formats used to cite sources, but there are only two forms of citation:

1. In-text Citation requires the writer to cite the details of the reference used in a certain part of his/her
essay. The format of in-text citations vary per style.
2. Reference Citation refers to the complete bibliographic entries of all references used by the writer.
This appears in the reference list found at the last part of the paper.

These two forms of citations are dependent on each other. Once a source is cited in-text, it should also appear
in the reference list or else it may be considered as a form of plagiarism.
RAMIREZ: Style Guides
These citations are governed by rules of styles and structure, which are generally published as style guides or
manuals. Some of the widely used style guides are:

1. The Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (APA)

2. The Modern Language Association Style Guide (MLA)
3. Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE)
4. American Medical Association Manual Style (AMA)
5. The Chicago Manual of Style

STYLE GUIDE DISCIPLINE

APA Psychology, education, hotel and restaurant management,
business, economics, and other social science
MLA Literature, arts, and humanities
IEEE Engineering
AMA Medicine, health sciences, and other natural sciences
CHICAGO Reference books, non-academic periodicals (e.g., newspapers,
magazines, journals, among others)

SOLIS: Guidelines in In-text Citation

1. APA, 6th edition Basic Citation Rules
2. Basic Rules from the MLA Handbook, 7th edition and MLA Style Manual, 3rd Edition
3. IEEE Editorial Style Manual,2014
4. AMA Manual of Style 10th edition, (Section 1, Part 3)

ATOMAR: Guidelines in In-text Citation

1. APA 6th edition
2. MLA Handbook, 7th edition
3. IEEE Editorial Style Manual, 2014
4. AMA Manual of Style, 10th edition