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Avoiding Plagiarism and Intergrating Research

Plagiarism can be overt and intentional (downloading a paper from the Internet and turning it in as your own, for example) or it can be the unintended result of sloppy research, poor paraphrasing, and inaccurate citations. The tips in this handout are designed to help writers avoid unintentional plagiarism by offering guidelines on accurate quoting, effective paraphrasing, and correct citation of research material.

If you have any questions about the proper use of sources in your essays, please visit the Writing Center in Ferguson 113, or call us for an appointment at 594-7684. Bring in your original source material and your essay, and we'll help you compare them to our guidelines.

IPlagiarism is using someone else's ideas or words without properly crediting their source. It's important to avoid plagiarism because ideas are considered to be intellectual property; presenting someone else's ideas as your own is tantamount to theft, and the law treats it as such. The following acts are considered plagiarism:

• failing to enclose borrowed language in quotation marks
• failing to put summaries and paraphrases in your own words
• failing to cite the source of quotations and borrowed ideas (even when you have successfully paraphrased or summarized them)

II. To avoid unintentional plagiarism, remember to:
Document every original idea taken from a source, whether you quote, paraphrase, or summarize it. If you use someone else's material and don't give the author credit, it's plagiarism!!

Enclose all material taken word-for-word from a source in quotation marks. If you omit the marks, you are falsely claiming the language as your own.

Acknowledge the borrowed material by introducing it with a signal phrase that names the authority; this indicates where the borrowed material begins.
According to Sun Tzu, "For to win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill" (76).

Paraphrase and summarize in your own style and language.
No: Winning one hundred victories in one hundred skirmishes isn't the epitome of skill. To tame the enemy without fighting is the epitome of skill (Sun Tzu 76).
Yes: According to Sun Tzu, winning every battle is not the best mark of military effectiveness; the most successful army is the one that does not even need to fight (76).

Give specific, in-text documentation for each quoted, paraphrased, and summarized item.

Provide a bibliographic entry on your Works Cited page for every source cited in the paper. A citation for our example in Modern Language Association style would look like this:
Tzu, Sun. The Art of War. Trans. Samuel B. Griffith. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1963.

Follow this general rule when working with quoted, paraphrased and summarized material: introduce it, present it, credit it.

III. Quote sources accurately and surround material drawn directly from the source in quotation marks. Cite the source in parentheses.

Use signal phrases to indicate who is speaking rather than dropping the quotation into the text without warning. Verbs like acknowledges, admits, asserts, argues, claims, confirms, disputes, insists, observes, reasons, refutes, responds, suggests, thinks, writes, combined with the name of the authority and his or her brief title are good choices for your introductory phrase.

Try to vary the type of signal phrase to add variety to your presentation.
Quote with signal phrase:
Writers often struggle with their work. Author J.B. Priestly admitted, "Most writers enjoy two periods of happiness-when a glorious idea has come to mind, and when a last page has been written" (9).

Use square brackets [ ] to indicate any alterations that you make to the quotation to make it fit your sentence and use bracketed ellipses [. . .] (in MLA style; in APA style, omit the brackets) to indicate you have omitted words that appeared in the original.
According to Sun Tzu, "For to win one hundred victories [ . . . ] is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill" (76).

III. Paraphrase and summarize sources carefully, and cite the source in parenthesis. Borrow words sparingly from the original source (usually no more than two), and try to vary your sentence's structure from that of the original. Some steps to follow in paraphrasing:

Decide which key words (no more than 2-the fewer the better) you must keep, and find synonyms for others
Change the order of ideas in the passage and alter sentence patterns from the original
Compare your paraphrase to the original to make sure you haven't borrowed too much original language or structure
Cite your source

IV. Review: Do the following acts constitute plagiarism?

What if I paraphrase or summarize, but I don't cite the source?
What if I paraphrase, cite the source, but use a lot of the original author's words and don't put them in quotation marks?
What if I use a quotation and cite it, but don't put it in quotation marks?
What if I use a quotation, put it in quotation marks, but don't cite it?

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