Plagiarism

Example of copying and pasting

Example of paraphrasing that is not cited

Plagiarism:

Since women's wages often continue to reflect the mistaken notion that men are the main wage earners in the family, single mothers rarely make enough to support themselves and their children very well. Also, because work is still based on the assumption that mothers stay home with children, facilities for child care remain woefully inadequate in the United States.

Plagiarism:

By and large, our economy still operates on the mistaken notion that men are the main breadwinners in the family. Thus, women continue to earn lower wages than men. This means, in effect, that many single mothers cannot earn a decent living. Furthermore, adequate day care is not available in the United States because of the mistaken assumption that mothers remain at home with their children.

Original:

Because women's wages often continue to reflect the fiction that men earn the family wage, single mothers rarely earn enough to support themselves and their children adequately. And because work is still organized around the assumption that mothers stay home with children, even though few mothers can afford to do so, child-care facilities in the United States remain woefully inadequate.

A brief introduction

Original:

Because women's wages often continue to reflect the fiction that men earn the family wage, single mothers rarely earn enough to support themselves and their children adequately. And because work is still organized around the assumption that mothers stay home with children, even though few mothers can afford to do so, child-care facilities in the United States remain woefully inadequate.

Example from:

Fowler, James E. "Avoiding Plagiarism: A Student Survival Guide." Avoiding

Plagiarism: A Student Survival Guide. Mississippi State University, Apr.

2003. Web.

What is direct copying?

Example from:

Fowler, James E. "Avoiding Plagiarism: A Student Survival Guide."

Avoiding Plagiarism: A Student Survival Guide. Mississippi

State University, Apr. 2003. Web.

Directly taking another person's words--be it entire passages or even a few phrases--without citing the source is plagiarism.

What is plagiarism?

As stated on the OWL Purdue website, plagiarism is the “uncredited use (both intentional and unintentional) of somebody else's words or ideas.”

If you take someone's work or ideas, either by paraphrasing or directly copying, and you do not give that person credit, you are plagiarizing.

OWL Purdue Resources: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/589/02/

Do I cite everything?

No. As OWL Purdue notes, you don't need to cite when...

• “Writing your own lived experiences, your own observations and insights, your own thoughts, and your own conclusions about a subject
• …writing up your own results obtained through lab or field experiments
• …you use your own artwork, digital photographs, video, audio, etc.
• …using ‘common knowledge,’ things like folklore, common sense observations, myths, urban legends, and historical events (but not historical documents)
• …using generally-accepted facts, e.g., pollution is bad for the environment…”

Can I reuse previous essays I have written?

No. Recycling your own work, be it a paragraph or an entire essay, constitutes academic dishonesty. It misses the point of the assignment.

"Welcome to the Purdue OWL." Purdue OWL: Avoiding Plagiarism.

Purdue University, n.d. Web. 18 July 2013.

What if I accidentally plagiarize?

What is paraphrasing?

Finally

• When in doubt, cite.
• Remember that the consequences of plagiarizing are serious and can derail your academic prospects.
• Always approach your academics with integrity and sound decision making.

It's still plagiarism. To avoid plagiarism, do your own work and avoid finding analysis within other papers. The best way is to synthesize ideas from several sources, rather than taking from only one source.And if you ever take ideas from the web or other places, you must cite them. When in doubt, cite.

Taking ideas from a website or from another person and putting them into your own words is paraphrasing. You must cite the original source or you will be plagiarizing.

Is it Plagiarism?

When do I cite?

The following are quotes from sources and excerpts from student papers that somehow employ

the source quote. Is this plagiarism?

Citing means that you give credit to the source where you found your information. As noted by OWL Purdue, you must cite when you...

• Use “words or ideas presented in a magazine, book, newspaper, song, TV program, movie, Web page, computer program, letter, advertisement, or any other medium"
• Include "information you gain through interviewing or conversing with another person, face to face, over the phone, or in writing"
• "Copy the exact words or a unique phrase"
• "Reprint any diagrams, illustrations, charts, pictures, or other visual materials"

Original Quote:

“To be sure, Atlantic Africans made important contributions in forging the interconnected,

mutually influencing entanglements of the Atlantic world; yet they were also ensnared by them—through slavery, through racism, through colonial subjectivity.”

This quote comes from page 305 of the following:

Sweet, J. H. (2009). Mistaken identities? Olaudah Equiano, Domnigos Álvares, and the methodological challenges of studying the African diaspora. American Historical Review,114(2), 279-306.

Student paper excerpt: As one historian has written, people from Africa played an important role in creating the interconnectedness of the early modern Atlantic world even though they were often victims of slavery and racism.

Is this plagiarism?

Original Quote:

“Just as some advocates viewed Central Park as the future rendezvous of the polite world, so some enthusiasts imagined a zoological garden as a place for their socializing.… The private society’s projected zoo would be open to the public but closed to the general public on Sundays. (London’s Zoological Garden admitted only subscribers on Sundays, ‘the fashionable day’ to visit.) The Herald warned that ‘such class regulations’ ‘in favor of the wealthy few’ would not be tolerated in republican America.”

This quote comes from page 342 of the following:

Rosenzweig, R. & Blackmar, E. (1982). The park and the people: a history of Central Park. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

Student paper excerpt: When Central Park was founded some advocates viewed the park as the future rendezvous of the polite world, and they wanted to restrict admission to the zoological garden to subscribers on Sundays (Google Books, 2009).

Is this plagiarism?

YES. This passage paraphrases the idea of another author without providing

a specific citation. Even though the student acknowledges that the idea is not her own by writing

“As one historian has written,” the source information is not provided. A specific citation for the

source is needed to be completely free and clear of plagiarism.

YES. The student quoted directly from the source without the use of quotation marks and did not accurately cite the source.

A corrected version might read:

When Central Park was founded, “some advocates viewed the park as the future rendezvous of the polite world,” and they wanted to restrict Sunday admission to the zoological garden to subscribers (Rosenzweig & Blackmar, 1982, p. 342).

"Welcome to the Purdue OWL." Purdue OWL: Avoiding Plagiarism.

Purdue University, n.d. Web. 18 July 2013.

Where can I learn more?

OWL Purdue ("Is It Plagiarism Yet?"): https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/using_research/avoiding_plagiarism/is_it_plagiarism.html

Aim: How can we analyze plagiarism?