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English Composition · Chapter 10

Says Who? The Common-Knowledge Dial

“You don’t have to cite common knowledge” is a claim about readers, not about facts — and the line moves when the reader changes. Pick an audience, rule on each claim, then turn the dial and watch which verdicts flip. Gold-outlined claims are the ones that just changed answer.
Step 1 · Who is reading this paper? 1 of 4
Step 2 · Rule on each claim 0 of 11 answered
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Correct
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Answered
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Flip this round
Waiting
Rule on a claim and the reasoning appears here — including which of citation’s four jobs is at stake.
The working test. Forget the fact. Ask instead: could a skeptical reader in this audience say “says who?” Numbers, dates, causal claims, technical definitions, anything with a study behind it, and anything you learned last week almost always fail that test.
The four jobs a citation does
CreditSays this sentence contains someone else’s labor.
LocateGives a reader enough to find the source in under a minute.
CalibrateLets a reader weigh a 1987 textbook differently from a 2023 review.
SeparateMarks the boundary where borrowed material stops and your thinking starts.