T-PAC: Plagiarism

What is Plagiarism?

• Submission of work or ideas that are not your own
• Use of your own work for multiple assignments or classes
• Referencing a source without citing it
• Inadequate, incorrect, or mistaken citations

Most people do not deliberately commit plagiarism. Some common plagiarism pitfalls include:

• Incomplete understanding of original material: Avoid using any source you don't fully understand. As a general rule, if you cannot restate the main idea of a passage in your own words without looking at the source, then you should not yet use this source for your work.
• Citation Errors: Using words or passages from the original source without using quotation marks or citing the source; using different citation styles within the same assignment; or using citation format incorrectly.
• Poor note-taking: You may forget to put quotation marks around notes taken directly from text or find that your notes are disorganized. As a result, you cannot tell which notes came from which source when you write your assignment.

Inadvertent plagiarism is still plagiarism, and there are consequences. Read the Student Academic Honesty Code to learn about the consequences of plagiarism.

According to MIT's Academic Integrity Handbook (linked below), common knowledge "refers to information that the average, educated reader would accept as reliable without having to look it up." Common knowledge includes:

• Information that most people know (Barack Obama was the first African-American to be elected president)
• Information shared by a cultural or national group (For people in the U.S., that the nation was founded in 1776)
• Knowledge shared by members of a certain field (in music, that there are four primary clefs: treble, bass, alto, and tenor)

However, what may be common knowledge in one culture, nation, academic discipline or peer group may not be common knowledge in another. (1)

If you aren't sure if something is common knowledge, cite it! 

(1) "Common Knowledge." Academic Integrity at MIT. https://integrity.mit.edu/handbook/citing-your-sources/what-common-knowledge

There are many ways you can misappropriate or steal ideas, both intentional and unintentional. It is your responsibility to learn how to use and cite your sources. 

• Direct Plagiarism is the word-for-word transcription of a section of someone else's work without citing it. 
• Self-Plagiarism occurs when you submit your own previous work or mix parts of previous work without permission from all instructors involved. For example, it would be unacceptable to incorporate part of a term paper you wrote in high school into a paper assigned in a college course. Self-plagiarism also applies to submission of the same piece of work for assignments in different classes without previous permission from both instructors.
• Mosaic Plagiarism or "Patch Writing" occurs when you borrow phrases from a source without using quotation marks or find synonyms for the author's language while keeping the same general structure and meaning as the original. 

Example of Mosaic Plagiarism

Example of Appropriate Paraphrase

• Accidental Plagiarism occurs when you forget to cite a source, misquote a source, or unintentionally paraphrase a source by using similar words or sentence structure without attribution. 

If you plagiarize, even accidentally, you may fail your assignment, class or you could even be expelled. If you don't know if you are plagiarizing, ask your professor, the Miller Writing Center, or a librarian for help.

Developing your note-taking skills is the first step in avoiding accidental plagiarism. Note-taking can help you:

• Accurately attribute your quote to the correct source (prevent quote mix-ups)
• Understand a quote in the context of the full source
• Save time when writing

To take better notes, it is important to:

• Record the full citation for a source to avoid disrupting your writing process
• Distinguish between writing down a quote and writing down your own thoughts
• Keep track of which ideas and quotations go with which source (including the page number). This is important even when paraphrasing a source in your own words.

Tips for Improving Note-Taking

• If you are taking notes during a lecture, consider using a web plug-in to block social media sites for the duration of your class. These are also helpful when writing to prevent distraction.
• Find your preferred style of note taking. The Note-Taking Handout from Purdue University (pdf attached below) describes three methods of note-taking.

As you research, it is very important that you cite your sources! When in doubt, cite it! Below are resources for learning how to cite in the three most common citation styles: APA, MLA, and Chicago. Your instructor should tell you which citation style you should use. 

The books listed below are available for in-library use at the Help Desk on the 2nd floor of RBD Library.

APA Style

MLA Style

Chicago Style