I use this activity to frame discussions about citations and plagiarism.
A chalkboard or whiteboard.
First, tell students that you're going to lead them through a short thought experiment.
Imagine that you've just started a new internship for a company that you really want to work for. Your new supervisor asks you to do some research and report back with a recommendation.
(The topic doesn't really matter -- it can be related to the class topic, or it could be something like recommending a new type of polling software)
Next, tell students that you're making one major assumption with this activity -- that their new supervisor is going to draw some conclusions about them from their performance on this, their first major assignment.
Ask them if they share that assumption. Make sure you have consensus on this idea before moving forward.
Now, ask students to write down a list of adjectives that they would hope their new boss would use to describe them, based on their work in this assignment.
Give them 2 minutes to create their own list
Give the groups 3 minutes to develop a consensus list of the three most important adjectives.
Debrief. Ask the groups to call out adjectives while you write them on the board.
Now, tell them that we're going to shift gears a bit. Instead of thinking about how their boss would describe you, think about how you'd like your new boss to describe your process, or your work habits.
Add those terms to the list on the board.
Explain that when we cite sources -- we're helping to paint this picture of ourselves. We don't do it because we think our reader will only believe us if we have a citation, we do it because it shows the reader that we are [insert adjectives here].
Transition from this into - what types of sources should we consult to demonstrate that we are [insert adjectives here].
Note: When I have done this in classes, students tend to give the kind of adjectives that work well here -- fair-minded, objective, thorough, concise, efficient, knowledgable, etc.