Plagiarism

Definition Using someone else’s words, work, ideas, opinions without giving credit.

stealin g

Types of Plagiarism Using another’s exact words without using quotes and without giving credit to the author. Putting someone else’s words, ideas, or opinions into your own words (paraphrasing) without giving credit to the author. Using facts or statistics that are not common knowledge without giving credit to the author or researcher. Buying or using someone else’s paper and taking credit for the work yourself.

How to Avoid Plagiarism Careful note-taking! Record where you got the information. Put direct quotes in quotation marks. Note the page number. Learn to paraphrase correctly. Read the passage. Close the book. Write notes on the text in your own words. Double-check the info in the book against your notes.

To Cite Someone else’s exact words. Must be enclosed in quotation marks. Someone else’s music, charts, diagrams, etc. Facts and statistics that are not common knowledge. Someone else’s words, ideas, opinions, even if they are paraphrased.

Not to Cite Common knowledge or generally accepted facts. Ex. The Declaration of Independence was written in Ex. Cocaine is an illegal drug in the U.S. Your own personal opinions, observations, experiences, conclusions, beliefs

To Cite or Not to Cite Decide if the following information should be cited.

Information that pretty much everybody knows. A. Cite. B. Don’t cite.

Statistics about the economy that you read in the newspaper yesterday. A. Cite. B. Don’t cite.

What you believe about the topic you are researching. A. Cite. B. Don’t cite.

Charts or diagrams that you copied to illustrate your point. A. Cite. B. Don’t cite.

Is it Plagiarism or Not? Decide if the following situations are examples of plagiarism or not.

You read your friend’s report on cocaine and felt that she had done an excellent job. You did not copy her paper, but did use just one paragraph which fit perfectly into your report. A. Plagiarism B. Not Plagiarism

You illustrated your point about the dangers of smoking with a story of all that your great aunt suffered when she had lung cancer. A. Plagiarism B. Not Plagiarism

You copied the chart from the encyclopedia, but wrote the entire report on your own. A. Plagiarism B. Not Plagiarism

You did not use the author’s exact words; you used a thesaurus and changed many of them, but still expressed the same idea. A. Plagiarism B. Not Plagiarism