Avoiding Plagiarism

Avoiding Plagiarism Ensuring academic success!

Would you ever steal? Nevertheless, when you copy another person’s ideas or words without giving credit, you are plagiarizing, which is committing academic fraud!

Deliberate plagiarism is cheating . “The word comes from the Latin word for kidnapping” (Perrin 121).

Copying from a published essay, web site, buying a paper on-line, copying a phrase without citing, or using a friend's paper, is plagiarizing. If you do so, you run a terrible risk. The consequences include the following: Receiving a F on the paper Failing the class Being suspended from Owens.

The worst consequence— Losing an opportunity to learn!

When should I cite? Is it your idea? Yes NO Do not cite Is it common knowledge? No Cite it!!

Accidental PlagiarismUsing words from another source without indicating where they came from.

Solution Enclose direct quotes with quotation marks.

Note - the author is credited • Fitzgerald’s story opens with “the caddies were poor as sin and lived in one-room houses” (407). • “Writing to learn has different goals from” other forms of writing (Gere 5). • Gere maintains that writing to learn strategies alter the roles of teachers and students (5).

Plagiarism when summarizing • If a passage is summarized and those ideas are inserted into your work without noting that these ideas are not your own, then you have plagiarized.

Solution • Introduce the author and the page of the source for the summary.

Borrowing/purchasing a paper • Submitting someone else’s paper as your own is plagiarism! • Whether you hire someone else to write for you or “borrow” their work, you are plagarizing.

Solution • Trust your own abilities! The Writing Center can help you at any stage of the writing process as well as help you in working with your sources.

Helpful hints: • When you take notes, add citations as you go along. • Create a research portfolio with a copy of every source. • Annotate sources so that you have a better understanding and will be able to integrate your sources more smoothly.

Use this check list: • Are quotation marks placed around any direct quotations? • Are ellipses and brackets used appropriately? • Are sources identified with the source and the page number (if any) of the quotation?

Use this check list: • Do paraphrases differ significantly in word choice and sentence structure from the passage being paraphrased and the source and page number from which you took the paraphrase identified? • Are summaries not just a series of passages copied from the source?

Use this check list: • Are signal phrases used to distinguish between your ideas and those from your sources? • Do you have a Works Cited or Reference page?

Ways to avoid accidental plagiarism: • Careful note taking • A clear understanding of the rules for quoting, paraphrasing, and summarizing sources

Always remember- If it is new to you— then cite it!

Works Cited Perrin, Robert. Handbook for College Research 3rd edition. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2005.

Avoiding Plagiarism