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Sometimes an idea you read may inspire another idea in you that you want to use in your academic paper. That is, reading an idea in a text may set you off in a different direction, one you might not have followed if you hadn't read that source.
If the idea you read was the source of your inspiration, then you should cite the source of that idea, even if you have neither quoted nor paraphrased.
The source of our idea is a passage from page 36 of Jonathan Spence's history The Gate of Heavenly Peace: The Chinese and Their Revolution, 1895-1980, published by Penguin Books, New York in 1981. In this passage Spence describes reaction to a treaty signed between China and Japan in 1895. The scholars he is describing are those who are in Beijing to take the government examination, a goal toward which they have worked for decades. He emphasizes the strength of their reaction, describing particularly the role of one scholar, Kang Youwei:
Source passage:
Yet however patient, or inhibited, this new generation of Confucian scholar-students might have been, they could not but react with amazement and anger when the terms of the peace treaty finally negotiated between China and Japan at Simonoseki reached Beijing by telegram on April 15, 1895: China had been forced to cede both southern Manchuria and Taiwan to the Japanese, and had agreed to pay a colossal indemnity, equivalent to two hundred million ounces of silver. Japanese industries were also to be allowed into the rich Yangtze Valley area. Within hours of hearing this news, Kang Youwei and some close friends were circulating a petition urging rejection of the treaty; within days they had drafted a statement to the Emperor in the form of a memorial almost eighteen thousand characters long, cosigned with the names of more than a thousand examination candidates drawn from all eighteen provinces of China proper. The crowded meetings at a local temple in Beijing, the hurried lobbying with senior officials, th
e long lines of men patiently queuing outside the government bureaus to make their feelings known, the willingness of students to commit themselves in public to an antigovernment stances even while competing in the government examinations: all these circumstances made it, in the words of one contemporary observer, an unprecedented example in China of patriotic and emotional expression . . . .
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Paragraph showing how to cite ideas:
Spence's description of how Chinese scholars sitting for the government examination reacted vehemently to the signing of the treaty with Japan in 1895 (Spence, 36) raises questions about contemporary American politics. . Where are the concerned groups willing to risk their own future to effect a desired change? Where are the passionate political groups seeking change for the betterment of all? It seems that in contemporary America, politicians focus only on their own reelection.
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One of the ideas from Spence's passage is applied to another situation; however, since Spence's passage inspired the application, the writer gives credit to Spence. Note that this paragraph focuses on the contemporary American political situation. However, the passage from Spence has clearly inspired this discussion, since the passage uses Spence's example of risk-taking people with the less brave people in the contemporary example. Thus, the citation occurs at the end of the reference to Spence, so that the reader of this paragraph knows that the questions about contemporary citizens belong to this author, not to Spence.
The Works Cited entry in the MLA format would look like this:
Works Cited
Spence, Jonathan. The Gate of Heavenly Peace: The Chinese and Their Revolution, 1895-1980.
New York: Penguin Books, 1981.
How to Cite Ideas Exercise
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