4.7 Avoiding Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Plagiarism is the action or practice of taking someone else’s work, idea, etc., and passing it off as one’s own; literacy theft (Oxford English Dictionary)
There are two types of plagiarism:
- Intentional plagiarism – Intentional plagiarism occurs when one claims to be the author of work that they know was originally written completely or in part by someone else.
- Unintentional plagiarism – Unintentional plagiarism occurs when a writer fails to follow to properly cite their sources without an explicit intent to cheat.
Take the following quiz to understand what counts as plagiarism
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Avoiding Plagiarism
To avoid plagiarism you must always give proper credit when you use an idea, image, quotation, or any other information created by someone else.
How to avoid plagiarism
- Start your work early
- Students often plagiarize when they do not have time to finish an assignment
- Direct quotations
- Quote no more words than necessary
- Cite any authors you quote
- Paraphrase
- Restate the ideas in an existing work while retaining the original meaning and level of detail
- Cite any authors you paraphrase
Paraphrasing
Paraphrasing is not just expressing ideas “in your own words,” a writer must express the original idea in the context of their own writing.
- Paraphrasing is not just replacing words
- It is still plagiarism to replace words in the original text with synonyms
- A good paraphrase changes the wording and the sentence structure
- Always cite your source
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Paraphrasing without citing the original source is plagiarism
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