How to Avoid Plagiarism

WARNING: Plagiarism, taking someone else’s words or ideas and writing them as if they were your own, is a nasty, serious offence. Failing to take precautions to prevent plagiarism could result in a lot of trouble and could threaten your academic career. You can be sued if you publish plagiarized material, even if the plagiarism is due to oversight rather than deception. Due to oversight? Yes. It is possible to plagiarize accidentally, by not knowing how to identify words, data or ideas from outside sources. It is a tricky business, but plagiarism is quite easy to avoid as long as you understand its definition and watch yourself carefully.

So, what is plagiarism? Well, it comes in many forms, from a word-to-word duplication to a patchwork combination of “borrowed” phrases and one’s own words to a loose paraphrase of someone else’s ideas. Look at the following example:

The Source:

Historically, discrimination against minorities and women was not only accepted but it was also governmentally required. The doctrine of white supremacy used to support the institution of slavery was so much a part of American custom and policy that the Supreme Court in 1857 approvingly concluded that both the North and South regarded slaves “as beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations; and so far inferior, that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect.”

United States Commission on Civil Rights. “The Problem: Discrimination.” Racism and Sexism: An Integrated Study. Ed. Paula S. Rothenberg. New York: St. Martin’s, 1988. 9-16.

A word-for-word copy, without quotation marks and correct citation, would of course be plagiarism. But the following passage, though it may not be as obvious, is also plagiarized:

In the past, discrimination against minorities and women was not only common but was also condoned by the United States government. The doctrine of white supremacy that allowed slavery to survive and flourish was so thoroughly a part of American custom that in 1857 the Supreme Court decided that slaves were inferior beings without any rights.

Phrases, ideas and data are extracted from the source and woven into the writer’s own sentences without any indication of where they originated.

So, how different from the original source must your paraphrase or summary be if you are to avoid plagiarism? A possible rule would be to keep any specific words or phrases found in a source enclosed within quotation marks. You must be careful to cite the sources of data, original ideas or analysis, and particularly apt words. It is generally safe to repeat personal nouns, specific numbers, special terms (igloo, gross national product, influenza), and very simple words (horse, lung, father, temperature) without quotation marks.