How to Paraphraseand Avoid Plagiarism

WHAT IS Plagiarism?According to the Merriam-Webster Online

Dictionary… 1. To steal and pass off the ideas or words

of another as one's own. 2. To use another's production without

crediting the source. 3. To commit literary theft. 4. To present as new and

original an idea or product derived from an existing source.

Why does Plagiarism Occur?1. Lack of Knowledge and Skills: Students

don’t know procedures for citation and paraphrasing.

2. Insecurity or Lack of Preparation: Students take other’s work because they did not put the effort into learning the material, or they want to sound more impressive.

3. Developmental Issues: Students do not perceive what they are doing as unethical.

Direct copy and paste of someone

else’s work without including any of

your own writing. Submitting another’s work word-for-word

as your own.

Types of Plagiarism1. The Clone

Types of Plagiarism2. The Mashup

Some of the writing is original or correctly cited, but other parts

are copied from one or more sources without using quotation marks

or citation.

Types of Plagiarism3. Find & Replace

Parts of the text are copied from the internet, and

certain words and phrases have been changed to make

the passages sound different. The text is still too close to the author’s original

wording OR structure.

Types of Plagiarism4. The Recycler

Submitting work you did for one

class to a different one, or directly

reusing your old work for a new

assignment.

Types of Plagiarism5. The 404 Error

All copied text is cited, but some

citations are inaccurate or

leading to non-existent sources.

But…it was an accident!

In education, it does not matter if plagiarism was intentional or not. The consequences are usually the same.

1. Cite your sources accurately. 2. Learn to paraphrase properly.

How to Avoid Plagiarism:

What is a paraphrase?

Summary ParaphraseThe goal of a summary is to condense the main ideas of a text.

The goal of a paraphrase is to put someone else’s ideas in your own words.

You use a summary to take notes for class or to help you remember what happened in a reading assignment.

You use a paraphrase when writing an essay or paper.

A summary should be as short as possible.

A paraphrase does not shorten a text, it just puts the ideas in a text into original words.

Summary ParaphraseI need to remember what happened in this chapter. I will identify the main ideas of an ENTIRE chapter and condense them into a short statement!

I want to mention the idea the author wrote in this short paragraph in my essay. I will re-word and re-structure the idea in a completely different way so I can use it in my essay without a direct quote.

How to Paraphrase:Step 1: Gain a thorough understanding of

the ideas in the source text. If you don’t understand the author’s ideas, it will be difficult to put them in your own words.

How to Paraphrase:Step 2: Re-state the author’s ideas using different words and sentence structure

from the source text. Try to write the author’s ideas down without looking at

the source text - this will help you succeed.

Don’t look at the source text!

How to Paraphrase:Step 3: Cite your paraphrased

passages. Yes - you still have to cite a paraphrase just like a quote!

I just read a book called Writing Research Papers by James D. Lester. The passage I want to paraphrase is on page 46.

Example…

Original Text ParaphraseStudents frequently overuse direct quotation when taking notes, and as a result they overuse quotations in the final research paper. Probably only about 10% of your final paper should appear as directly quoted matter. Therefore, you should strive to limit the amount of exact copying of source materials while taking notes.

In research papers, students often quote excessively, failing to keep quoted material down to a desirable level. Since the problem usually originates during note taking, it is essential to minimize the number of direct quotes you add to your notes (Lester 46).

Original Text Plagiarism!Students frequently overuse direct quotation when taking notes, and as a result they overuse quotations in the final research paper. Probably only about 10% of your final paper should appear as directly quoted matter. Therefore, you should strive to limit the amount of exact copying of source materials while taking notes.

In research papers, students often quote excessively, failing to keep quoted material down to a desirable level. Since the problem usually originates during note taking, it is essential to minimize the number of direct quotes you add to your notes.

Original Text Plagiarism!Students frequently overuse direct quotation when taking notes, and as a result they overuse quotations in the final research paper. Probably only about 10% of your final paper should appear as directly quoted matter. Therefore, you should strive to limit the amount of exact copying of source materials while taking notes.

Students often use too many quotations when taking notes, resulting in too many of them in the final research paper. In fact, only about 10% of the final copy should consist of directly quoted material. So it is important to limit the amount of source material copied while note-taking. (Lester 46).

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