Attribution language is deployed in the body of your writing to show readers when your ideas derive from other sources or authorities. Language of attribution is often encountered in writing though sayings like “According to …” or through attribution verbs (e.g., The author asserts, or indicates, suggests, interprets, argues, etc.).
Continuing our use of the sample text, consider the following addition of attribution language to the previous paraphrase with quotation:
Reginald Smith emphasizes that Bede’s authorship of the Ecclesiastical History was guided by a specific intention beyond merely recording a timeline of a timeline of events in the history of Christianity in early medieval England. According to Smith, Bede was concerned with narrating England’s growth as Christian nation and showcasing its conversion from an island of “disparate pagan tribes into the ecclesia, the gathered people of God.”1
See the notation superscript? Use of attribution language does not remove the need for a source citation.
Attribution is important and is useful in writing, but it may not be necessary on every occasion. If you are going to quote a text, attribution is useful and necessary. If you are providing basic background knowledge gleaned from another source yet is neither controversial nor a matter of personal opinion or argument, you might not need to use language of attribution. For example, one could paraphrase and cite the following sentence (also derived from Smith’s fictitious book), which contains basic history, without adding “According to …”
Prior to the arrival of the Angles, Saxons, and other Germanic tribes from the continent, England was largely inhabited by Celtic peoples and the remnants of the Roman empire that had established its presence on the island.
Use attribution as a tool to help your writing and to inform your reader that you are drawing on information or ideas from others. If you have adequately paraphrased material from a source and cited it appropriately, then the decision to attribute the source within your writing can be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.