Academic writing is a conversation that draws on research about a topic or question. Scholars write for their peers, communicating the results of their research through books, journal articles, and other forms of publication. All scholars--whether in the natural sciences, the social sciences, or the humanities--incorporate, confirm, modify, correct, or refute the work done by previous scholars. In this response, they quote, paraphrase, and cite sources by using a system of documentation like the one described in this handbook. A system of documentation directs readers to the source of a quotation, paraphrased idea, fact, or other borrowed material. References are formatted in a standard way so that they can be quickly understood by all, just like a common language. Documentation and plagiarism is ultimately about ethics. Therefore, if you plagiarize by copying the work of others without documenting, you are being unethical in two ways:
you are most likely breaking copyright law, and
you are not acknowledging the work of others.
In the MLA's system, references in the text point to entries in a list of works cited. Writers use a template of core elements--elements that most sources have, such as author, title, and publication date--to cite any type of work. This template allows writers to assess all works according to standard criteria and provides a comprehensive method for evaluating sources and creating bibliographic entries based on the evaluation.
Plagiarism is presenting another person's ideas, words, or entire work as your own. Plagiarism may sometimes have legal repercussions (e.g., when it involves copyright infringement) but is always unethical.
Plagiarism can take a number of forms:
copying a published or unpublished text of any length, whether deliberately or accidentally, is plagiarism if you don't give credit to the source
paraphrasing someone's ideas or arguments or copying someone's unique wording without giving proper credit is plagiarism
turning in a paper or thesis written by someone else, even if you paid [or bartered] for it, is plagiarism
it is even possible to plagiarize yourself; in published work, if you reuse ideas or phrases that you used in prior work and do not cite your prior work, you have plagiarized
Plagiarism can be:
Intentional plagiarism: someone knowingly copied sections of other resources and submitted them as her/his/their own work
Careless plagiarism: someone knowingly used information from an outside source but thought that it was considered common knowledge or did not adequately provide in-text and/or end-text documentation
Both kinds of plagiarism have serious academic consequences, and it is important to understand the conventions of citing sources to avoid them.
Plagiarism reflects poorly on a person's judgement, integrity, and honesty and calls into question everything about that person's work. Plagiarism is serious because it erodes public trust in information.
All of the following are considered plagiarism:
turning in someone else’s work as your own (that includes words, images, music, symbols, or code)
copying words or ideas from someone else without giving credit
failing to put a quotation in quotation marks
giving incorrect information about the source of a quotation
changing words but copying the sentence structure of a source without giving credit
failing to cite the source of an idea you're paraphrasing
copying so many words or ideas from a source that it makes up the majority of your work, whether you give credit or not (see our section on “fair use” rules)
Many instances of unintentional plagiarism can be tracked back to sloppily taken notes during the research process. So be scrupulous in your research and note-taking.
clearly identify when you are copying words from a source (and transcribe them exactly or retain digital images of the passages), when you are summarizing or paraphrasing a source and when you are jotting down an original thought of your own
record page numbers for quotations and paraphrased passages in your notes
note-taking apps can help you collect information about your sources and organize your own ideas
steer a middle course between recording too much information and too little
collect all the sources you use in own place, which will allow you to double-check that your work acknowledges them
Notes that merely list quotation without giving any sense of why they are important, how they relate to the sources they derive from and to one another, and what they collectively mean will be of little help to you once you start writing.
Attention! Changing the words of an original source is not sufficient to prevent plagiarism. If you have retained the essential idea of an original source, and have not cited it, then no matter how drastically you may have altered its context or presentation, you have still plagiarized. Most cases of plagiarism can be avoided, however, by citing sources. Simply acknowledging that certain material has been borrowed and providing your audience with the information necessary to find that source, is usually enough to prevent plagiarism.
One of the reasons we document resources is to uphold the copyright laws that protect the information we use. Copyright laws regulate the use of a particular expression of an idea. Ideas that are considered "common knowledge" are not protected by copyright, but many people disagree about what constitutes common knowledge. Therefore, if any idea you include in your writing is not your own, you must cite it as someone else's work and give that person credit. Copyright laws protect the author, or producer, of any given text (written, audio, visual, performance, etc.) from people who might reproduce that text without permission.
What should you do if you want to refer to something in a resource that is still protected by copyright? Fair use allows individuals to copy small portions of texts to use in other contexts, especially in research and education. If you're doing a critical analysis of a book that has been written in the past fifty (50) years, you may quote a few small excerpts from it under the fair-use doctrine. Always keep in mind that even though fair use gives you this right, you still need to document how and where you found the information. This gives credit to the copyright holder while providing your audience with the information needed to find the original sources.
Copyright technically protects the expression of an idea, not the idea itself. However, in academic research it is expected that you also will document where and how you found specific ideas. For example, imagine a doctor who specializes in hip replacements has conducted research into a new method for connecting the replacement hip to the patient's thighbone. When writing his article about the new method, he needs to briefly discuss the methods currently in use to demonstrate why his new method is better. When referring to the other methods, he is not reprinting the exact details of them; however, he still must cite the resources that originally presented the other methods. If the audience (readers) wants, or needs, to read more specific or detailed material about the other hip replacement methods, his documentation will provide a way.