Use sources honestly
Use Sources Honestly
Resources are valuable, but a serious student must distinguish personal observation from borrowed insight. This applies to commentaries, dictionaries, Bible backgrounds, AI tools, lectures, and websites.
Course lesson
How to complete this study section
This lesson teaches resource honesty. Sources can clarify, correct, and sharpen your work, but they should not silently become your study. The student should distinguish personal observation from borrowed information.
Do this
- Do your own observation and first interpretation before consulting commentaries.
- Record each outside source used: title, author or site, page or URL where relevant, and what it contributed.
- Paraphrase honestly; do not merely swap words while copying structure or ideas.
- If a source changed your conclusion, record the correction.
- Treat AI as a tool to check and organise, never as biblical authority.
Examples
- Good source note: “Bible dictionary confirmed that Philippi was a Roman colony; this helps explain citizenship language.”
- Poor source use: writing a commentary's explanation into your notes as though you discovered it yourself.
Quality check
A professional study shows its evidence trail. Hidden dependence weakens both integrity and learning.
Rules
- Do your own observation before using commentaries.
- Record every outside source that shapes your conclusion.
- Use quotation marks for exact wording from a source.
- Paraphrase honestly; do not copy sentence structure and swap words.
- Label AI-generated material if it shaped the wording or structure of your study.
- Distinguish your conclusion from a commentary conclusion.
- Keep a resource-used log in the final packet.
Source log pattern
| Source | What I used | Exact quote? | How it changed my study |
|---|---|---|---|
| Yes / No | |||
| Yes / No |