Avoiding Plagiarism

According to Webster's New World Dictionary, to plagiarize is to "take the ideas, writings, etc. from another and pass them off as one's own" (570). When you do this, you are committing a form of academic dishonesty. In actuality, plagiarism is a type of stealing. The person whose ideas or sentences you are passing off as your own has worked hard to write down his or her ideas. If you just copy another's work, you are not really working at all, you are not learning anything, you are not processing the information in any way. In fact, you are just copying. Teachers want you to do more than that in your research papers. They want to know that you have processed the information in some way. To show them that you understand the material, you want to put the ideas that you are learning into your own words. You can do this by summarizing or paraphrasing the material. To further avoid plagiarism, you will also want to document where you found your information. There are several styles of documentation, including the use of in-text citations and footnotes. In the section "Using and Citing Sources," I suggest three ways, including summarizing and paraphrasing, for you to incorporate source material into your paper and also explain three methods of documenting your source material. If you have any questions about how to incorporate material or document your sources, please refer to this section.

In my experience as an English instructor, I have seen several types of plagiarism, some more egregious than others:

	Some students will buy papers or secure a paper from the Internet and try to pass it off as their own. This, of course, is the worst form of plagiarism because the student has not done any work at all and has taken an entire paper and tried to pass it off as his own work. Teachers are starting to design writing assignments more specifically to help students avoid this type of plagiarism.
	Some students will copy word-for-word entire sections of a book or article into their paper and not document in any way. My feeling about this type of plagiarism is that the student is trying in good faith, but hadn't yet learned about correctly incorporating source material or about documentation.
	Some students will summarize-put into their own words-large portions of material from books or articles but not document-let the reader know where they got the information either in a footnote or an in-text citation. My feeling about this type of plagiarism is that, again, the student is trying in good faith, but hadn't yet learned about documentation. Sometimes teachers won't specify that they want a certain documentation style, so the students might feel that they don't need to document. But students should document as a matter of course in every research paper they write. You reinforce the correct use of documentation every time you use it.
	Students will paraphrase or summarize a sentence or paragraph here and there from a source, but not document with either a footnote or an in-text citation. Just understand that every time you take the ideas or writings-even if it is only a sentence or two-from another person, you need to document.

Because academic honesty is an important part of all institutions, students might experience some harsh consequences as a result of plagiarism, just as they would if they were caught cheating on a test. If you plagiarize a paper, whether you are cognizant of it or not, a teacher will most likely approach you with the paper to find out what had happened. If you plagiarized because you did not understand how not to, the teacher will most likely give you a chance to make amends, and hopefully they will show you ways to avoid plagiarism. If they don't you would need to see someone in the Writing Center, or at the very least, visit the section on this Web site called "Using and Citing Sources." If you knowingly plagiarized, your teacher might do one of two things: give you an F on the paper or give you an F in the class. Students can also be expelled from an institution for plagiarizing.

I developed a note taking system for my English Composition I students to use to help them process their research material. Perhaps this system will help you to avoid plagiarism. You can find this system in the section called "The Research Process." I think between the information you gather from the section "Using and Citing Sources" and from the section "The Research Process," you can effectively begin to avoid plagiarizing.