A way to avoid plagiarism! Citations A way to avoid plagiarism!

Quick review on plagiarism: Plainly stated, plagiarism is literary theft. Stealing another person's words and pretending those words are your own is a serious offense. Any time you use a direct quote or idea from an author, you must give the author credit. Changing only the words of an original source is NOT sufficient to prevent plagiarism. You must cite a source whenever you borrow ideas as well as words.

When should you cite? When in doubt, always cite! Specifically, you want to cite any research that is not readily available information. Compilations of readily available information, such as the phone book Works published by the U.S. government (i.e. the Constitution) Facts that are not the result of original research (such as the fact that there are fifty U.S. states, or that carrots contain Vitamin A)

Another Example Walt Disney founded the Disney company and created one of the most well-known cartoon characters of all time, Mickey Mouse (Should you cite this phrase or would you be fine to leave it?) Raised on a farm in Maceline, Missouri, Walt became interested in drawing at an early age, selling his first sketches to neighbors at only seven years of age. (Should you cite this phrase or would you be fine to leave it?)

In-text Citations Basics In-text citations alert the reader that you are borrowing the ideas of another person, and guide the reader to the Bibliography page for more information.  You must use an in-text citation each time you use a direct quote, paraphrase, or summarize from someone else’ work.

In MLA (Modern Language Association) style, the in-text citation consists of… 1.The author’s last name 2. The page number of the document cited, which looks like this (Bachelder 17). 

Basic Rules If you are using the same person’s ideas throughout an entire paragraph, use one citation at the end of the paragraph. If there is no known author, use the title instead, preferably in abbreviated form. If there is no page number, as is often the case with web sites, omit it.

Basic Rules… If you have used the author’s name in the sentence, you don’t have to repeat it in the citation. If you are using a long quote, such as an entire paragraph or poem, block indent it without quotation marks. Use “…” to replace any words you leave out of a direct quote.

Examples… Author and Page Number – Books and Magazines LeBron James arrived at his high school driving a new $50,000 Hummer, in clear violation of rules against high school athletes receiving gifts or payment from agents or recruiters.  When asked where he got it, he said it was a gift from his mother (Callahan 10).

Examples… Just Page Number – Author Already Mentioned in Sentence Riedling notes that plagiarism “… is not a new phenomenon” (100). (Also used “…” for words that were left out.)

Examples… No Page Number – Web Site Researchers need more skills today than ever before because there is so much more information and because it isn’t neatly organized by humans (A+ Research).