What You Need to Know About Plagiarism | Understanding Common Knowledge | Selected Resource List

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT PLAGIARISM

1. What it is so you can avoid it
2. When and how to use effective quotations
3. When and how to paraphrase using your own words
4. When and how to reference a work you have used and write complete citations

Check out www.nutsandboltsguide.com/plagiarism.html for a chapter from Michael Harvey's forthcoming book entitled The Nuts and Bolts of College Writing. In it he has an important section on Plagiarism, followed by a link to a section on Effective Quoting which presents lots of examples for you to follow. Harvey explains plagiarism as follows:

The Random House dictionary defines plagiarism as "the unauthorized use or close imitation of the language and thoughts of another author and the representation of them as one's own original work." Imitation or borrowing by themselves are not plagiarism. Drawing on other people's ideas is perfectly reasonable and in fact unavoidable when you write academic essays -- but you must acknowledge the borrowing.

The common thread that runs through all discussions of plagiarism is the idea of deceit or dishonesty. Ignorance of the "law" is no excuse. Whether the "borrowing" is intentional or unintentional does not change the outcome. If you pass on another's words, thoughts, arguments or expressions as if you had thought them up yourself, you are plagiarizing!

Look at the example above. If you decide you like the words someone else has used and you feel the way he has expressed his idea is better than your paraphrase, you may use that person's ideas and words. However, you MUST put quotation marks around the words you copy and/or indent his paragraph to show that you have copied it and give full credit to the place where you got your information. Sometimes it may be best to quote a source directly as in the above example because you are invoking an authority on the subject. A dictionary definition is appropriate here. All citation style manuals, including St. Martin's Handbook will show you how to do this.

Throughout your college years, your professors will want you to do research to find out what other people think about things and then put that other person's ideas into your own words and respond to them with your own thoughts and ideas. This is an important part of the education process. That is why much of your success in college will depend upon your ability to develop your own writing style so that you can get comfortable paraphrasing what you read and hear. This is a skill that can be developed with time and practice. The CEC (Center for Effective Communication) on the second floor of the library is available to help you develop these skills. They can also help you learn to use a style manual to do a correct bibliography. Style manuals are available in the Reference Section of Hutchins Library. If you have any questions, please ask a librarian, or check the library's Subject Guide web pages to see which style manual is used for your subject.

There are also some websites listed below that link to examples of appropriate paraphrasing. But first a word about using common knowledge facts.

For example, it could be considered common knowledge around the world that Washington, D.C. is the capital of the United States, that London is the capital of England, as Paris is of France. The fact that Frankfort is the capital of Kentucky can be considered common knowledge even if it is not generally known by most people. It is not necessary to document and cite "common knowledge" in your bibliography as long as you are using your own words. If you COPY another's description of common knowledge word for word, or even with similar words arranged differently, you are plagiarizing! You must still paraphrase it using your own words.

The questions listed above that you are responsible for learning about can be answered in more detail with many good examples from the following websites:

The Writing Tutorial Services at Indiana University, Bloomington, has an excellent site with good examples: Plagiarism What It is and How to Recognize and Avoid It. See: http://www.indiana.edu/~wts/wts/plagiarism.html

The Writer's Handbook at the University of Wisconsin has a section on Quoting and Paraphrasing: Samples Paraphrases--Unsuccessful and Successful at http://www.wisc.edu/writing/Handbook/QuoSampleParaphrases.html

The University of California at Davis has a detailed list of examples called Avoiding Plagiarism which helps distinguish between Intentional and Unintentional paraphrasing and discusses common knowledge. See: http://sja.ucdavis.edu/sja/avoid.htm

Dartmouth College uses examples from Caroline Spurgeon's critical work, Shakespeare's Imagery to illustrate acceptable and unacceptable quoting and paraphrasing in About Citing Sources: What is Plagiarism? See: http://www.dartmouth.edu/~sources/about/what.html

A Statement on Plagiarism is an award winning site giving examples from Capital Community College <http://webster.commnet.edu/mla/plagiarism.htm> showing acceptable and unacceptable paraphrasing and use of quotations.

BOOST (Basic Online Orientation Skills Tutorial) also has a tutorial you can work through entitled "Understand and Avoid Plagiarism". If you use the Assignment Calculator , it will be one of the links that is listed for your use.

Text prepared by Francie Bauer, Selected Resource List by Julia Dickinson, both of Hutchins Library.