Plagiarism: What is it? How can students avoid it?

1
Plagiarism is defined as "the deliberate or reckless representation of another's words,
thoughts, or ideas as one's own without attribution in connection with submission of
academic work, whether graded or otherwise." 2 Because plagiarism is considered a form
of cheating, students who plagiarize may receive a zero on the assignment, a failing
grade in the course, be referred to the University Disciplinary Committee, or be
suspended from the University.

WHY ARE INSTRUCTORS SO CONCERNED ABOUT PLAGIARISM?

In order to understand plagiarism, it helps to understand the process of sharing and

creating ideas in the university. All knowledge is built from previous knowledge. In order
to build on these ideas ethically as we create our own theories and practices, we must
distinguish what are our ideas and what are others ideas we call other scholars ideas
and language intellectual property. Citing resources correctly will give credit to those
thinkers and writers on whose ideas you have built your ideas and provide resources for
other readers who may be interested in your work

When you are working from other writers work, there are standards you are expected to
meet:

Demonstrate that you understand the sources you have researched and read.
Cite your sources carefully as support for your own ideas.
Make clear what is your writing and what language and ideas have come from
others.
It is NEVER acceptable to simply cut and paste from one source into another. This
collage does not demonstrate that you have read, understood, and analyzed the
sources you have researched. Secondary support must ALWAYS support the writers
original ideas.

WHAT IS COMMON OR PUBLIC KNOWLEDGE THAT DOES NOT REQUIRE DOCUMENTATION?

Through extensive research, you may reach a point where you feel that every writer says
the same thing or that you know the information well enough to claim it as your own
common knowledge. In order to ensure that you are properly crediting scholarly work,
ask yourself the following questions:

Did I know this information before I took this course?

Is this information and/or idea my own?

If the answer to either question is no, then you should cite the source.

1 One excellent resource for writing questions of all kinds is the Purdue Online Writing Lab. http://owl.english.purdue.edu/

2 University of North Carolina. Instrument of Student Judicial Governance, Section II.B.1.

HOW IS PARAPHRASED MATERIAL PROPERLY DOCUMENTED?

Paraphrasing is the process of taking another persons ideas and putting them in your
own words. Rearranging words or changing a word or phrase is not paraphrasing. One
effective way to ensure that you are paraphrasing and not plagiarizing is to read the
material you want to use and then write your paraphrase without reading from the text.
Paraphrased material should be cited just as direct quotes are cited.

WHAT IS THE BEST WAY TO AVOID PLAGIARISM?

Take scrupulous notes. Before you begin reading and taking notes, write down the entire
bibliographic citation. Use the Cornell notetaking method for best results:

Notes: January 15, 2012

Comments Notes
This will be a good Wilkins, Shannon. A Few Tips on Writing Well. Journal of the
article to copy and send American Medical Women's Association. 2004; 59(3):157-159.
over to the pre-med
society. I would have Wilkins is a medical doctor who is widely published. She published
guessed that even this article to help pre-med students understand the importance of
more than 25% of writing. She says that slightly more than a quarter of manuscripts
articles are rejected submitted to peer-reviewed journals are rejected for poor writing or
because of poor improper format (157).
writing.
Hyper-fluency is a She addresses something that college students from all majors
problem, especially with need to hear: What might surprise you is that the best
students who are not professional writing is simple writing, yet we often choose words
accustomed to lots of that we think will make us sound more academic (158).
personal writing.
Rule: get your ideas down She concludes her article with very good advice: get something on
on paper; then worry paper; then go back and fix what needs attention. She quotes
about the details. Warren Browner, author of Publishing and Presenting Clinical
Research, states: "Dont fuss over the first draft of a manuscript.
Just write, without worrying about style, brevity, or clarity (qtd
Wilkins 159).
Summary: Wilkins makes some very good suggestions about effective academic
writing. She follows Williams (10 Lessons) suggests: Good writing is clear, concise,
coherent. I especially like her thoughts about getting something down on paper and
worry about fixing it later. This is something I try to impress on students all the time.

After you have completed your research and notetaking, you should know enough about
the topic to write your text. CITE your sources properly during the notetaking phase.

Use the questions below in the COMMENTS column as a heuristic to help you understand
the article you are reading:

What is the author trying to say?

Why does the author think these points are important?
How is the authors argument developed?
What structures does the author use to make his/her point?
How effective is the authors argument?
HOW CAN I TELL WHETHER I'VE PLAGIARIZED?

Double-check your document to make sure you have properly documented work from
sources.
Cite as follows:

1. Place all direct quotes in quotation marks.

2. Provide proper credit when you change words into synonyms (this is NOT
paraphrasing).
3. Provide credit when you paraphrase ideas into your own words.
4. Identify your source when your sentence is made up of your own thoughts, but
contains a reference to anothers ideas.
5. Cite your source even if you use the authors name in the sentence.

A few guidelines about using secondary sources:

1. ALWAYS introduce EVERY quotation with an attribution (tag) line:

a. Couric stated that Matt Lauer is taking a leave of absence.
(paraphrase)
b. Lauer claims that even he does not know his own destination
when he is filmed for Where in the World is Matt Lauer? (direct
quote)
2. DO NOT copy and paste from a source into your paper. If you are using a
source to support your own ideas, you should be able to paraphrase
supporting materials.
3. DO NOT copy and paste a direct quote. Type it into your paper rather
than copying pasting. This will require careful attention to detail and
increase your ability to remember the information in the quote.
4. Quote directly ONLY when you cannot say it better yourself.
5. AVOID long quotations.
6. Create a blocked quote if you quote more than FOUR typed lines.
7. Use blocked quotes ONLY when that passage cannot be successfully
paraphrased.
8. NEVER quote more than TEN typed lines from a secondary source.