Plagiarism

Plagiarism is the act of plagiarizing. According to Merriam-Webster, the definition of plagiarizing is:

• to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one's own : use (another's production) without crediting the source
• to commit literary theft : present as new and original an idea or product derived from an existing source

Students plagiarize both intentionally and unintentionally. There many different types of plagiarism. The Plagiarism Spectrum defines ten main ways that students plagiarize: 

1. Clone: Submitting another's work, word-for-word, as one's own
2. CTRL + C: Contains significant portions of text from a single source without alterations
3. Find - Replace: Changing key words and phrases but retaining the essential content of the source
4. Remix: Paraphrases from multiple sources, made to fit together
5. Recycle: Borrows generously from the writers perspective
6. Hybrid: Combines perfectly cited sources with copied passages without citation
7. Mashup: Mixes copied material from multiple sources
8. 404 Error: Includes citations to non-existent or inaccurate information about sources
9. Aggregator: Includes proper citation to sources but the paper contains almost no original work
10. Re-Tweet: Includes proper citation, but relies too closely on the text's original wording and/or structure

In order to actively avoid plagiarism, you must first understand the definitions listed above and the ways that you can mistakenly plagiarize. After that, you will use citations anytime you use quotations, paraphrase, and summarize other's work to avoid plagiarism. The Learning Commons librarians would love to help you with citations through a one-on-one reference session. Learn more about tutoring from their webpage. 

A research paper includes ideas and facts gathered from other sources. As you write your paper, you will summarize, paraphrase, or quote directly from these sources. The process of acknowledging the sources you use is also known as citing your sources.

Why should you cite? According to the Kentucky Virtual Library, citing your sources:

• Lends credibility to your work by showing that you worked hard to collect relevant information.
• Demonstrates the authenticity of your work by showing that you found the information yourself and didn't plagiarize.
• Enables your readers to locate your information sources so if your professor or another student wants to do research on that same topic, they know where to find those articles.
  

Every time you quote or paraphrase someone else’s work, you must tell us:

• who wrote the work
• what is it called
• how we can we find a copy

You give us this information in two places:

1. In the paragraph where you are quoting or paraphrasing. This is called an In-Text Citation because you will put brief information about the work in parentheses.
2. In the Works Cited or References page at the end of the paper. This is where you put all of the information we need to find a copy of the works you used in your paper.