Plagiarism is presenting someone else's work or thoughts as your own. Whether this is done intentionally or not, plagiarism is a serious offense. Credit must be given in the form of a citation when quoting directly, summarizing, or paraphrasing the source.
Protect yourself; when in doubt, ask your professor for guidance when citing sources in your paper.
When you hear the word plagiarism do you envision someone copying and pasting directly from a resource into their paper? That is definitely one way plagiarism happens, but it's not the only way! Read ahead to learn about the different types of plagiarism and how to avoid them. Remember, intentional or not, plagiarism is a serious violation of academic honesty and can have very real consequences during your academic career and beyond.
When in doubt, if an idea isn't 100% yours, cite where it came from. Then put all of those ideas you got from other people together to draw your own conclusions.
This is what people generally think about when they say the word plagiarism, copying someone else's text word for word into your writing without a citation or quotation marks. Fortunately, this is easy to avoid. If you are using someone else's words, give credit to them in your text and in your bibliography.
This is when someone borrows the idea and structure of another author's work, but changes it slightly so the quote isn't copied word for word. This is still dishonest, even if you add the work to your bibliography. When you are citing a work, you aren't just citing how something is worded, but the IDEA.
This is also easy to avoid. If you want to use someone's idea but don't want to quote them directly you can use phrases like "According to [the author]...", "In their paper titled [paper title], [author name] discusses the idea that...".
Self plagiarism usually happens when students start to fall behind in their work or feel overwhelmed by the amount of work they have to do so they resubmit all or part of a previously written and paper. Even though it is your paper, this is still considered plagiarism and can result in disciplinary actions being taken. If you are getting to a point where you feel that self plagiarism is your only option, reach out to your instructors to discuss the issue and see what other options are available to you. But don't wait until the last minute! Instructors are able to be more flexible when the issue is addressed early in the process.
Accidents happen, but what does accidental plagiarism look like so it can be avoided?
While unintentional, these can still cause trouble if they are found in your writing. So, how do we avoid accidentally plagiarizing?
