Plagiarism

Claiming another’s ideas, copying text, citing incorrectly.

Avoiding Plagiarism

Avoiding plagiarism is easy once you know what to look for. Planning out your paper provides the opportunity to use sources properly.

Some tips for generating a paper:

Ask your professors what style guide they want you to use for your papers. They are your most valuable resources because they will be the ones grading your work and looking for plagiarism.
Develop an outline and a thesis statement that includes your own views. Make sure your point is going beyond the research.
Take notes from the sources you research. From these notes, try developing a paragraph about the ideas you have without looking at the original source. This will keep you from copying their sentence structure and help you develop the ideas in your own way. Use our tips on writing summaries and paraphrases to help you.
Be sure to properly document each source in your notes. Make it clear where each note comes from because misquoting and improper citation are both plagiarism. We have lots of information in our MLA and APA sections.
Clearly distinguish your ideas from the source ideas. For example, state the name of the author before you provide his or her views to make it clear that these are somebody else’s ideas. For example, “In Forever Young, Matt Johnson shows us how it is better live in the moment than to never live at all.”
When in doubt, cite the source. It can never hurt to cite a source.
Most importantly, plan ahead. Give yourself enough time to research your topic and write your paper…YOUR paper.

“Safe Practices” The OWL At Purdue. 18 Sept. 2007. Purdue University. 6 Dec. 2007 http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/589/01/.