Plagiarism & Academic Dishonesty

If you use someone's ideas or words without proper credit, you have plagiarized!!

Can be intentional or unintentional!

Can take many forms, including:

• using someone's ideas or words without providing a proper credit (in-text citation & corresponding Works Cited entry)
• copying and pasting from a source (without quotation marks AND proper credit)
• quoting too extensively (NO more than 20% on this paper)
• poorly paraphrasing a source (too close to the original)
• presenting someone's work or part of a work as your own
• making up sources or crediting sources that were not really used
• misattributing (crediting the wrong source or page)
• submitting a paper that was written by someone else
• resubmitting a paper (handing in a paper written for another class)

Avoiding Plagiarism:

• Use online research tools with built-in source tracking, tips, and "help" features, such as NoodleTools (teacher may require this!)
• Use notes (don't write as you read source)
  • take notes in bullet points/phrases
  • carefully & accurately record source & page # information
  • paraphrase AS you take notes
  • look up words you don't understand
  • summarize sections, don't simply reword, sentence by sentence
• Keep organized (a teacher may ask you to document your research!!)
• Proofread (ask, "Is this common knowledge, or did I use a source to get this information?")
• Get help

Sources can be:

• Web sites & pages (including social media sites, blogs, etc.)
• Online documents
• Videos/movies
• Sound files (music, podcasts, etc.)
• Person (interview, either original, recorded, or written)
• Books (including eBooks, online books, audio books, chapters, articles/entries)
• Magazines, journals, newspapers (including online editions, online only, databases)

Copyright (legal) vs. Plagiarism:

• Copyright is legal protection for intellectual property
• Use with permission by creator
• "Fair Use" exception:
  • Copyrighted material may be used without permission under certain circumstances, including instruction, academic work (including student work), parody, criticism, and news (reporting)
• Some works have fallen out of copyright (protection has expired) and are now in the "Public Domain" (i.e., members of the public are free to use)