ARH 125 - Chase: Avoiding Plagiarism

Created by Hartness Library CCV/Vermont Tech.

Plagiarism: What it is and how to Recognize and Avoid it.
Created by Indiana University’s Writing Tutorial Services department, this site defines plagiarism and gives clear examples of how to paraphrase properly, Copyright 2009, The Trustees of Indiana University.

Credible Sources Count!
Vaughan Memorial Library at Acadia University

Paraphrasing is stating something in your own words to convey the same meaning.

There are steps to paraphrasing:

1. Understand the text; highlight and re-read 
2. Pull out key points of the text & rephrase in your own words.
3. Check your words against the original source. If there are exact phrases that you rewrote, put quotes around it.
4. Cite it, using a signal phrase or in-text citation like this:

X illustrates this point clearly when he states, “…” (X, p.144).
X claims when they write…
The evidence of X can be clearly seen in the case of …
For example, X (2009) conducted a series of semi-structured interviews in … 
As X states, “to …” (X, p.45).

See our Citations Guides for help formatting your citations properly:

pla⋅gia⋅rism

(plā'jə-rĭz'əm)

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: prsent as new and original an idea or product derived from an existing source. - from Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, eleventh ed. 2003.

Intentional & Unintentional

Intentional: deliberate copying or use of another's work without giving credit, submitting a paper from the Internet, another student, or a previous course as one’s own original work, or altering or falsifying citations to hide sources
Unintentional: not properly citing sources, overall sloppy research and note-taking, or cutting and pasting from electronic resources without revision.

When in doubt:

1. Introduce the source
2. Cite the source
3. List the source on a reference page