Format for a written college report

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Pope John 11

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Does anyone understand the following as below. I have just finished a report however the college requires that you do the following when extracting information from a text book it has to be put in the form below:

in text: "O'Rourke (2009) said that..............."

Up to now I have used the Author's surname, the year when the text was published but not used the quotation marks. I have also reworded what they have said, but, now I don't think this is correct?

Should I be extracting exactly what they said in the text, after all the format is to be as per the above with the quotation marks.

Apologies if this is in the wrong forum location.
 
I think it depends on whether you are copying the text verbatim, which would require quotation marks, or paraphrasing in your own words, which wouldn't.

i.e., depends on if you are saying

O'Rourke (2009) said "O'Rourke's argument in his exact words"

or

O'Rourke (2009) made the argument, [my summary in different words] which I'm now using to support my point.


But you need to give the source and year in all cases - make sure you have the correct referencing system the college uses (e.g. Harvard)
Hope this makes sense.
If you're still in doubt, your tutor should be able to clarify?
 

Mel, thanks for that, it is indeed the Harvard system.

So then it is acceptable to paraphrase from a book, because this is exactly what I have done throughout the whole report, and for me to go back over it and use exact quotations would be a nightmare, as I have read many books to get the report complete.
 
I used this system in college and while the college had reference sheets to it I sound the following very good.
[broken link removed]
 
Mel or anyone, can you tell me if a 'literature review' is only giving a review of current texts without offering an opinion.

Essentially the Report is broken down as follows:

Introduction (State Objectives)
Current Situation & Background (Literature Review)
Investigation (Questionnaires, interviews, findings)
Discussion & evaluation
Conclusion (should relate to the objectives)
 
A literature review is a review and critique of the relevant literature. Highlights what is known or not known about a topic (gaps in the literature). It wouldn't be the norm to offer opinions in a lit review, opinions are normally given in the discussion section.
 
Thought so alright, I now need to find gaps on a subject matter that I really do not know a lot about.
 
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