Plagiarism: How to Avoid Plagiarism

Here are some basic strategies you can use to avoid plagiarizing:

• Take careful notes, clearly identifying any quotes you copy down, along with their source and page number  
• Keep a list of all the sources you have consulted for your project  
• Whenever you directly copy words from another source, put those words in quotation marks and provide a citation
• When you paraphrase, or rewrite something in your own words, provide a citation If you use an image or chart from another source, provide a citation
• If you summarize someone else's arguments, conclusions, or research results, provide a citation  
• If you provide statistics from an outside source, provide a citation  
• If you cut and paste from the Internet, provide a citation  
• If you are not sure, provide a citation. It is better to provide an unneeded citation than to not provide a needed citation

Remember that in most cases you must provide both an in-text citation and an entry in your bibliography for each source that you use

Plagiarism can take many forms, and can be either deliberate or accidental. Even when plagiarism is accidental, the consequences are still serious.

Examples of plagiarism include, but are not limited to:

• Copying or cutting/pasting information without providing documentation
• Quoting, paraphrasing, summarizing, or using graphics without providing documentation  
• Paraphrasing or using quotes in such a way that the original meaning is altered  
• Changing only a few words when paraphrasing or summarizing 
• Submitting work you completed for one class for a different class (self-plagiarism)  
• Purchasing/reusing a paper someone else wrote