Click here for a Printable Version of these Rules and Guidelines.
No honest scholar wants to be guilty--even unintentionally--of the
intellectual crime of PLAGIARISM. Therefore, we provide you with
these guidelines so that you don't accidentally fall into the plagiarism
trap.
Plagiarism is the taking of someone else's words, work, or ideas, and
passing them off as a product of your own efforts. Plagiarism may occur
when a person fails to place quotation marks around someone else's exact
words, directly rephrasing or paraphrasing someone else's words while still
following the general form of the original, and/or failing to issue the
proper citation to one's source material.
In student papers, plagiarism is often due to...
- turning in someone else's paper as one's own
- using another person's data or ideas without acknowledgment
- failing to cite a written source (printed or internet) of information
that you used to collect data or ideas
- copying an author's exact words and putting htem in the paper without
quotation marks
- rephrasing an author's words and failing to cite the source
- copying, rephrasing, or quoting an author's exact words and citing a
source other than where the material was obtained. (For example, using a
secondary source which cites the original material, but citing only the
primary material. This misrepresents the nature of the scholarship
involved in creating the paper. If you have not read an original
publication, do not cite it in your references as if you have!)
- using wording that is very similar to that of the original source,
but passing it off as one's own.
The last item is probably the most common problem in student writing. It
is still plagiarism if the student uses an author's key phrases or
sentences in a way that implies they are his/her own, even if s/he cites
the source.
Pay heed to these guidelines and make sure your papers and academic works
are truly YOUR intellectual property!