Which door of the library does what, how you use a source as a summary, a paraphrase or a quotation, and where citation points get lost.
Fix the expectation first. In ENG 101 you are usually not asked to go hunting for outside sources for the essays: the assignment sheet only accepts outside knowledge as a response to the writers' ideas, and only at common knowledge level. In the final the rule is stricter, you cannot cite anything outside the texts you are handed. So in this course the library is not for evidence hunting.
You will use the library in four places: opening up a concept you do not understand through a reliable source, picking a text for your presentation and discussion, actually learning one of the debates in the topic bank, and getting ready for ENG 102. The fourth one matters, because in ENG 102 finding sources is a graded task.
| Where | What it searches | When |
|---|---|---|
| Library Catalog | The library's own collection: print books, e-books, journals, student projects, multimedia | When you are after a specific book |
| Quick Search | The collection, the subscribed databases and open access sources all at once | When you are after an article |
The guide the library wrote for these two courses directly. Its opening line is exactly this: “Welcome to the ENG 101 / 102 Library Guide.” Its tabs: Introduction, Finding Sources, Books, Finding Sources, Journal Articles, Research Skills, Mendeley, Plagiarism, Citing Sources, Off-Campus Access.
The library's own collection: print books, e-books, journals, student projects, multimedia. The Format icon on the results page tells you the type, a book icon for print and a page icon for electronic. For print the access information is the call number, for electronic it is the access link.
Same box as the catalog but a different thing: it searches the collection, the subscribed databases and open access sources all together. In the filters on the left, “Available in Library” leaves you full text and “Scholarly (Peer Reviewed) Journals” leaves you peer reviewed journals. The three dots on a record give you “Cite” for a ready citation and “Export citation” to push it to Mendeley or Zotero.
An alphabetical list of every subscribed database; it can be filtered by subject and by type (e-book, newspaper, trial, new subscription).
A guide compiled separately for the ENG program: a selected database list for the program, the name and email of the assigned faculty librarian, the FAE courses, and links to the BUSEL John Clarkson Student Reading Center and BilWrite.
Guides built faculty by faculty and subject by subject; there are theme guides too, one of them directly on “Annotated Bibliography”, explaining the difference between an annotated bibliography and a plain works cited list, and what an annotation has to contain.
Every faculty has a librarian assigned to it. Their service list says: support in reaching the source you are after faster once you tell them what you need, one to one information literacy consultation, one to one training in the library or in your faculty, and questions by phone and email.
Four channels: live chat on weekdays between 09.00 and 17.00; [email protected] or [email protected]; the phone on +90 (312) 290 1298 (weekdays 08.30-23.30, weekends 09.00-23.30); or in person at the loan desk in the Main Campus or East Campus library.
There are two ways in. VPN: you open an account with your STARS/BAIS details, and then every electronic resource opens. SSO: for a set of databases you need no VPN at all, you pick “Institutional Login” on the site, choose Bilkent as the institution and log in with your BAIS/STARS password. The SSO list includes JSTOR, EBSCOhost, ProQuest, ScienceDirect, Scopus, SpringerLink, SAGE, Taylor & Francis, Wiley, Cambridge Core, Oxford University Press journals, Nature, Annual Reviews, Statista, Web of Science, Mendeley and Grammarly.
The service that brings in books and articles the library does not have from other libraries. The sentence on its own page is clear: the service is for faculty members and PhD and master's students. If you are an undergraduate, the ILL form does not work for you.
A form suggesting the library buy a source it does not have. Before you fill it in you are asked to verify that the book is not in the collection in print or electronic form. Some requests get routed to ILL.
Theses, articles and course notes written at Bilkent. You can also search it by picking “Institutional Repository” in the search box on the home page; the course notes collection has its own link.
You log into Mendeley with a Bilkent account: in the app pick “Sign in via your organization”, Bilkent University as the institution, your Bilkent number as the username and your STARS/BAIS password. Zotero is free and its setup depends on nobody. Both produce MLA and APA output.
The route the library's ENG guide describes: students have no direct access to Turnitin, your instructor sees the report. But through app.intihal.net you can open a free student account with your bilkent.edu.tr address, ask your instructor or advisor for an access code, and get a similarity report for your own draft. The interface is in Turkish and English.
Bilkent's writing center and the ENG program's own service. Its site says exactly this: they cannot help with the ENG courses (101, 102, 117/8, 206, 401) or with PHIL 243/244, because the instructors of those courses already give one to one feedback tutorials. So you cannot book an appointment for your ENG 101 essay, your feedback channel is the tutorial.
The hours are published weekly and change during the term, the final period and the holidays. The “New Arrivals” filter in the catalog lists the newest books. With “My Lists” in your catalog account you can save search results into permanent lists.
A book you cannot find in the catalog under its English title may be recorded there in Turkish translation: Shermer's The Science of Good and Evil also sits in the catalog as “İyilik ve kötülüğün bilimi”, and Berger's Ways of Seeing as “Görme biçimleri”.
| Mode | What it does | When |
|---|---|---|
| Summary | The main idea of a whole text or section, in your own words, shorter than the source | To give the reader context. Good writing rests on summary, not on quotation |
| Paraphrase | A rewrite of a single passage in your own words, roughly the same length | When you need the detail but the wording itself does not matter. Paraphrase facts and information |
| Quotation | Word for word, in quotation marks | When the language is too strong for a paraphrase to have the same effect, when you are adding the backing of an authority, or when you are arguing about that exact wording |
Close the source, write what you remember in your own sentence, then open it and compare.
Without moral instruction, natural inclinations do not turn into order on their own; order is the product of a continuous restriction.
The writer argues that natural inclinations left to themselves produce no order, and that order is held together only by uninterrupted external constraint.
In the first one only the words changed, the sentence structure stayed the same. That is not paraphrasing, it is patchwriting, and it is the pattern Turnitin catches. The source sentence was made up as an example, it does not come from a real text.
Either open the quotation with an attributive tag or embed it in your own sentence. Do not leave it standing alone.
The writer says people are selfish by nature. “Order is the product of continuous constraint.” Education is also important.
For the writer “order is the product of continuous constraint”, and that formulation explains why education is not optional.
In the first one the quotation is left standing as a sentence of its own, in the second it is embedded in the grammar of your sentence. The second one both shortens it and makes the sentence yours.
| Verbs | What it says | When |
|---|---|---|
| argues, claims, maintains, states | Neutral, or mildly distanced | The default |
| demonstrates, shows, establishes | You find it right too | When the evidence is strong; do not use them when it is weak |
| assumes, asserts, insists, overlooks | Critical | A reason has to follow |
| concedes, acknowledges | The place where the writer admits something against their own side | The most useful ones in the counterargument paragraph |
| Case | How it is written |
|---|---|
| The author's name is not in the sentence | ... (Arendt 117). No comma |
| The author's name is in the sentence | Arendt argues that ... (117) |
| At the end of a quotation | ... “banality of evil” (Arendt 252). The parenthesis goes after the quotation marks and before the period |
| A repeat in the same paragraph | After the first one you can drop the author's name, the page number is enough |
| No page number | Author only; if there is a paragraph number, (Martinez, par. 5) |
| An indirect source | (qtd. in Garza 11). Hiding this counts as misattribution |
| MLA | APA | |
|---|---|---|
| In text | (Arendt 117) | (Arendt, 1963, p. 117) |
| List heading | Works Cited | References |
| Author name | Arendt, Hannah | Arendt, H. |
| Date | At the end of the citation | Right after the author, in parentheses |
The syllabus says “the citation format assigned by your instructor”, so the hard rule is whatever your section says. In the section we looked at, the guide handed out was MLA 9, and we could not verify that every section uses MLA. The only right answer is this: open your syllabus and use whichever style it names. Mixing two styles in one essay costs more points than using the wrong style consistently.
On the block quote threshold, two official documents contradict each other and we have both: the MLA 9 guide handed out in the section asks for a block for quotations longer than four lines, while the program's writing criteria ask for an indent for quotations longer than three lines or of 40-100 words. The practical fix: in a 2.5-4 page essay you almost never need a block quote. If you are quoting more than three lines, the problem is not the threshold, it is the length of the quotation. Cut it.
Not every sentence needs a citation. Things counted as common knowledge in the field need none; ideas and theories that experts recognize as belonging to a particular person do. The line is not always clean, because over time one person's idea spreads so far that its source is forgotten and it ends up in textbooks.
The guide's example pairs show the distinction well: water boiling at 100 degrees at sea level is common knowledge, the claim that there is a meaningful amount of water on Jupiter belongs to a source. Marco Polo being one of the first Westerners to travel to the Far East is common knowledge, the claim that he did not bring pasta from China to Italy belongs to a source.
Where you are unsure, put the citation in. Too many citations is not a flaw, a missing citation is a zero.
In the section we looked at, which work went to Turnitin was clear: the written part of the summary/critical response task, the final draft of Essay 1, and Essay 2. Students have no direct access to Turnitin, your instructor sees the similarity report. The library's ENG guide also says Turnitin can detect AI use.
There is an official way to check your own draft in advance and hardly anyone knows it: through app.intihal.net you open a free student account with your bilkent.edu.tr address, ask your instructor or advisor for an access code, upload your draft and get the report.
There is one more mechanism that does not sit on paper: if there is any concern that the work is not the student's own, the instructor reserves the right to call you in to discuss the essay or to rewrite it. So in this course getting caught is not a software decision, it is a conversation.