【明報專訊】The Smarties are learning how to include citations in their writing at school. Eason seems very satisfied with his own work.

“ MoMo: Writing the footnotes took me a lot of time. ”

“ Dr Panda: The citation part is really hard. ”

“ Eason: Just a piece of cake. ”

“ MoMo: You have five pages of citations! ”

“ Eason: What? I should at least get a pass! ”

“ Dr Panda: You quoted your own words. They're not credible sources. ”

■English highway﹕a piece of cake

We use "a piece of cake" to describe something that is very easy.

e.g. We need not have worried about the mid-term exam. It was a piece of cake.

◆Know more

When you create a written work and you want to use information from other sources, you have to mention where you found the information. This is called a citation, which gives credit to the author who actually created the content. Citations usually appear as footnotes, which include the name of the author, title of his/her work, date of publishing, etc. They are usually written in a specific format, depending on the subject matter the paper is about.

(See picture 2)

e.g.

Rowling, J.K. (1997). Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. London: Bloomsbury

(Author) (Year published) (Book) (City, State) (Publisher)

■Glossary

citation (n) 引述/引文

footnote (n) 註腳

quote (v) 引用

credible (adj) 可信的

[Smarties' Power English 第253期]