Sometimes a student plagiarizes accidentally due to ignorance and carelessness.  The instruction and examples below will help you avoid intentional and unintentional plagiarism.  TIP: If you don't know for sure, ask.

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WHAT IS PLAGIARISM?

Plagiarism is presenting someone else’s ideas, phrasing, facts, explanations, statistics, research, examples, ideas, opinions, or arguments as one’s own.

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Plagiarism also occurs when someone’s ideas, phrasing, facts, explanations, statistics, research, examples, ideas, opinions, or arguments of someone else are paraphrased without citing the source of the information or crediting the author. (Paraphrasing means rewriting someone else’s words into one’s own words.)

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WHAT IF ONLY A PARAGRAPH, A SENTENCE, OR A PHRASE IS IMPROPERLY CITED OR IMPROPERLY PARAPHRASED?

·         It’s still plagiarism if the source is not cited or the author not credited.

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AVOIDING PLAGIARISM

·         You must carefully record all sources utilized in the research process, identify all notes taken by source and page number, and indicate direct quotes or partial quotes with quotation marks in your notes and in the research paper itself.

 

·         Faulty or sloppy documentation can result in unintentional plagiarism, which is still a major academic error.

 

·         Sources that should be documented include any written information, online information, or oral interviews and media presentations.

 

·         Even when using a few words from a source, you must use quotation marks if the phrasing or word choice is unique to the original writer.

 

·         Paraphrase, but be sure you are not just rearranging or replacing a few words. Instead, read over what you want to paraphrase carefully; cover up the text with your hand, or close the text so you can't see any of it (and so aren’t tempted to use the text as a “guide”). Write out the idea in your own words without peeking.

 

·          Check your paraphrase against the original text to be sure you have not accidentally used the same phrases or words, and that the information is accurate.

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WHAT ARE THE CONSEQUENCES?

Plagiarism is an intellectual and academic offense. By claiming someone else’s work as one’s own, the student is faking the learning process, and no educational community can succeed if its students are not actually learning. Plagiarizing compromises one’s integrity and can result in serious consequences. Students who plagiarize are subject to disciplinary action, which may result in loss of credit for a project or test, or, in the case of repeated incidents of plagiarism, loss of class or course credit. Plagiarism at the collegiate level can result in expulsion.

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EXAMPLES OF PLAGIARISM AND APPROPRIATE USE OF OTHERS' WORDS:

Here is the ORIGINAL TEXT, from page 1 of Lizzie Borden: A Case Book of Family and Crime in the 1890s by Joyce Williams et al.:

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The rise of industry, the growth of cities, and the expansion of the population were the three great developments of late nineteenth century American history. As new, larger, steam-powered factories became a feature of the American landscape in the East, they transformed farm hands into industrial laborers, and provided jobs for a rising tide of immigrants. With industry came urbanization—the growth of large cities (like Fall River, Massachusetts, where the Bordens lived) which became the centers of production as well as of commerce and trade.

 

Here is an UNACCEPTABLE PARAPHRASE that is plagiarism:

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The increase of industry, the growth of cities, and the explosion of the population were three large factors of nineteenth century America. As steamdriven companies became more visible in the eastern part of the country, they changed farm hands into factory workers and provided jobs for the large wave of immigrants. With industry came the growth of large cities like Fall River where the Bordens lived which turned into centers of commerce and trade as well as production.

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The preceding passage is plagiarism for two reasons:

·         The writer has only changed around a few words and phrases, or changed the order of the original’s sentences.

·         The writer has failed to cite a source for any of the ideas or facts.

If you do either or both of these things, you are plagiarizing.

 

Here is an ACCEPTABLE PARAPHRASE:

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Fall River, where the Borden family lived, was typical of northeastern industrial cities of the nineteenth century. Steampowered production had shifted labor from agriculture to manufacturing, and as immigrants arrived in the US, they found work in these new factories. As a result, populations grew, and large urban areas arose. Fall River was one of these manufacturing and commercial centers (Williams 1).

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This is acceptable paraphrasing because the writer:

·         accurately relays the information in the original

·         uses his/her own words

·         lets his/her reader know the source of his/her information

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Here’s an example of QUOTATION AND PARAPHRASE USED TOGETHER, which is also acceptable:

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Fall River, where the Borden family lived, was typical of northeastern industrial cities of the nineteenth century. As steam-powered production shifted labor from agriculture to manufacturing, the demand for workers “transformed farm hands into industrial laborers,” and created jobs for immigrants. In turn, growing populations increased the size of urban areas. Fall River was one of these hubs “which became the centers of production as well as of commerce and trade” (Williams 1).

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This is acceptable paraphrasing because the writer:

·         records the information in the original passage accurately

·         gives credit for the ideas in this passage

·         indicated which parts are taken directly from her source by putting those passages in quotation marks and citing the page number.

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PLAGIARISM AND THE WORLD WIDE WEB

The World Wide Web has become a popular source of information for students’ papers, and many questions have arisen about how to avoid plagiarizing these sources. In most cases, the same rules apply as for a printed source: when you refer to ideas or quote from a WWW site, you must cite that source.

 

If you want to use visual information from a WWW site, many of the same rules apply. Copying visual information or graphics from a WWW site (or from a printed source) into a paper is very similar to quoting information, and the source of the visual information or graphic must be cited.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

http://chs.d211.org/wp-content/uploads/pdf/english/write_right.pdf

http://wts.indiana.edu/pamphlets/plagiarism.pdf