Year 12s: what will be the first way you research your future options? >>

Citing conversations ?!

I'm currently writing an essay on slavery and morality and wondered whether I should footnote things that other people have said to me that 'inspired' certain parts of my essay ?

For example, my tutor clarified something to do with Nietzsche for me in an email and my boyfriend said something that I have reworded in my essay.
I want to footnote them both out of courtesy but as the person marking it won't know either way whether or not these are my own ideas would it end up just looking bad on me that I've used information from external but non-academic sources ? I'm in my first year of university and not sure whether this is frowned upon in academia...

Academic sources I have used are referenced in the bibliography rather than footnotes by the way (if this is relevant).

This might seem like a stupid question and some people would just not reference to be on the safe side but I'd feel dishonest knowingly using anything that came from somebody else and passing it off as my own...

Thanks !

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