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Purdue Online Writing Lab: Avoiding Plagiarism
Includes a list of what does and does not need to be credited, safe practices for varying types of research activities, and an opportunity to practice with plagiarism exercises.
Everything you ever wanted to know about Plagiarism! Includes tips, Plagiarism FAQ, information on citing sources, guidelines for plagiarism prevention, webinars on current issues in plagiarism, and more.
Not sure what "Fair Use" or "Intellectual Property" means? Check out this glossary of research-related terms.
Need something a little more interactive? Check out Acadia University's interactive tutorial on plagiarism. Choose a character and click your way to helping her create a plagiarism-free research paper.
Plagiarism Checks for Students
Want to check your paper for any uncredited sources? Try one of the services below.
Offers both free and paid services.
Make sure you cited all your sources! Powered by Turnitin, this service is essentially "Turnitin for students".
Avoiding Plagiarism
Points taken from the brief Holt Handbook, Third Edition, Kirszner and Mandell
Plagiarism is defined as taking credit for ideas not your own. While it is sometimes intentional, plagiarism mostly occurs when students are inattentive to where they've gotten their information or haphazard in cutting and pasting information they've found on internet sources.
The best maxim to remember in research is, "give credit where credit is due." Document words or ideas borrowed from a source. After all, the author worked hard to compose them.
Avoid plagiarism by:
- Taking careful notes. Remember to distinguish between your ideas and your sources. Always leave a paper trail (citing of author, title, publisher, page number) so it is easier to cite the author in your paper.
- Learning to distinguish common knowledge from specific ideas or opinions of the author. Actual information such as the birth and death dates, historical events, etc. is considered to be in the public domain.
- Giving the author credit when you use specific ideas, opinions, and speculations. If you are in doubt, give credit to the source.
- Using a Key-word outline to summarize the author's general thoughts. This helps you avoid copying the exact phrases of the author. Select the 3 key words from each sentence and only write those down. In the writing of your paper, you would give credit to the author but do not need to use quotation marks if the exact word phrasing is not used.
- Enclosing specific quotes in quotation marks. When exact word phrasing is used, enclose the borrowed words in quotes and give credit to the author. Specific phrases must receive the credit of the author. It is not enough to include the author;s name and then utilize specific words without quotation marks.
- Varying dramatically the general idea you derived from an author. Do not imitate a source's syntax and phrasing and call them your own. You cannot closely duplicate the author's sentence style and ordering by replacing key words with synonyms and call them your own.
- Showing clearly the difference between your thoughts and those of the source. It is best that in your writing you acknowledge the author before you borrow his material.
An Encouragement to Academic Honesty
As Christians, we have a special duty to be honest in all we say and do, and that includes what we claim as our academic property! Plagiarism is lying and stealing, and as such, it is offensive to our Holy God.
Let these verses encourage you to academic honesty.
"The truthful lip shall be established forever, but a lying tongue is but for a moment" (Proverbs12:19)
"Teach me Your way, O Lord, I will walk in Your truth; Unite my heart to fear Your name." (Psalm 86:11)