When to footnote?

Question

I am writing a paper which is mostly a historical look at unions in the united states. I have found one really good book and am basically following the same outline that the author uses. Although the majority of my paper is paraphrased from the one book, I do not want to have to footnote every sentence but i am scared of getting in trouble for plagiarism. Since most of the info contains numbers or facts, it is not common knowledge but when do i footnote and when do i not?

Answer 1

It sounds to me like you are, unfortunately, stuck. When you take a particular, uncommon fact from a particular location, you have to cite the source. If you draw a conclusion of your own, using the book as background material, then you can cite the book as a general reference.

One way that some authors circumvent frequent footnoting is with a disclaimer that all data comes from source . Using this depends on whether it's within the citation style demanded by your instructor.

Answer 2

You should footnote all factual material, but you don't have to repeat the entire footnote every time. If it's from the same book, just number the footnotes in order and say, for example: Ibid, p. 23. Ibid is Latin for "in the same place" and it's an acceptable way to footnote material once you've given all the necessary information. Even though you paraphrase, you must cite your source or, as you understand, you can be accused of plagiarism.