Plagiarism: What It is and How to Recognize and Avoid It

What is Plagiarism and Why is it Important?

In college courses, we are continually engaged with other peoples ideas: we read them in texts, hear them in lecture, discuss them
in class, and incorporate them into our own writing. As a result, it is very important that we give credit where it is due. Plagiarism is
using others ideas and words without clearly acknowledging the source of that information.
How Can Students Avoid Plagiarism?
To avoid plagiarism, you must give credit whenever you use
another persons idea, opinion, or theory;
any facts, statistics, graphs, drawingsany pieces of informationthat are not common knowledge;
quotations of another persons actual spoken or written words; or
paraphrase of another persons spoken or written words.
These guidelines are taken from the Code of Student Rights, Responsibilities, and Conduct.
To help you recognize what plagiarism looks like and what strategies you can use to avoid it, select one of the following links or scroll
down to the appropriate topic.
How to Recognize Unacceptable and Acceptable Paraphrases
o An Unacceptable Paraphrase
o An Acceptable Paraphrase
o Another Acceptable Paraphrase
Plagiarism and the World Wide Web
Strategies for Avoiding Plagiarism
Terms You Need to Know (or What is Common Knowledge?)

How to Recognize Unacceptable and Acceptable Paraphrases
Heres the ORIGINAL text, from page 1 of Lizzie Borden: A Case Book of Family and Crime in the 1890s by Joyce Williams et al.:
The rise of industry, the growth of cities, and the expansion of the population were the three great developments of late nineteenth
century American history. As new, larger, steam-powered factories became a feature of the American landscape in the East, they
transformed farm hands into industrial laborers, and provided jobs for a rising tide of immigrants. With industry came urbanization
the growth of large cities (like Fall River, Massachusetts, where the Bordens lived) which became the centers of production as well
as of commerce and trade.
Heres an UNACCEPTABLE paraphrase that is plagiarism:
The increase of industry, the growth of cities, and the explosion of the population were
three large factors of nineteenth century America. As steam-driven companies became more
visible in the eastern part of the country, they changed farm hands into factory workers
and provided jobs for the large wave of immigrants. With industry came the growth of large
cities like Fall River where the Bordens lived which turned into centers of commerce and
trade as well as production.
What makes this passage plagiarism?
The preceding passage is considered plagiarism for two reasons:
the writer has only changed around a few words and phrases, or changed the order of the originals sentences.
the writer has failed to cite a source for any of the ideas or facts.
If you do either or both of these things, you are plagiarizing.

NOTE: This paragraph is also problematic because it changes the sense of several sentences (for example, "steam-driven
companies" in sentence two misses the originals emphasis on factories).
Heres an ACCEPTABLE paraphrase:

Fall River, where the Borden family lived, was typical of northeastern industrial cities
of the nineteenth century. Steam-powered production had shifted labor from agriculture to
manufacturing, and as immigrants arrived in the US, they found work in these new factories.
As a result, populations grew, and large urban areas arose. Fall River was one of these
manufacturing and commercial centers (Williams 1).

Why is this passage acceptable?
This is acceptable paraphrasing because the writer:
accurately relays the information in the original
uses her own words.
lets her reader know the source of her information.
Heres an example of quotation and paraphrase used together, which is also ACCEPTABLE:

Fall River, where the Borden family lived, was typical of northeastern industrial cities
of the nineteenth century. As steam-powered production shifted labor from agriculture to
manufacturing, the demand for workers "transformed farm hands into industrial laborers,"
and created jobs for immigrants. In turn, growing populations increased the size of urban
areas. Fall River was one of these hubs "which became the centers of production as well as
of commerce and trade" (Williams 1).

Why is this passage acceptable?
This is acceptable paraphrasing because the writer:
records the information in the original passage accurately.
gives credit for the ideas in this passage.
indicated which part is taken directly from her source by putting the passage in quotation marks and citing the page
number.
Note that if the writer had used these phrases or sentences in her own paper without putting quotation marks around them, she
would be PLAGIARIZING. Using another persons phrases or sentences without putting quotation marks around them is considered
plagiarism EVEN IF THE WRITER CITES IN HER OWN TEXT THE SOURCE OF THE PHRASES OR SENTENCES SHE HAS
QUOTED.
Plagiarism and the World Wide Web
The World Wide Web has become a more popular source of information for student papers, and many questions have arisen about
how to avoid plagiarizing these sources. In most cases, the same rules apply as to a printed source: when a writer must refer to
ideas or quote from a WWW site, she must cite that source.
If a writer wants to use visual information from a WWW site, many of the same rules apply. Copying visual information or graphics
from a WWW site (or from a printed source) is very similar to quoting information, and the source of the visual information or graphic
must be cited. These rules also apply to other uses of textual or visual information from WWW sites; for example, if a student is
constructing a web page as a class project, and copies graphics or visual information from other sites, she must also provide
information about the source of this information. In this case, it might be a good idea to obtain permission from the WWW sites
owner before using the graphics.
Strategies for Avoiding Plagiarism
1. Put in quotations everything that comes directly from the text especially when taking notes.
2. Paraphrase, but be sure you are not just rearranging or replacing a few words.
Instead, read over what you want to paraphrase carefully; cover up the text with your hand, or close the text so you cant see any of it
(and so arent tempted to use the text as a guide). Write out the idea in your own words without peeking.
3. Check your paraphrase against the original text to be sure you have not accidentally used the same phrases or words, and that
the information is accurate.
Terms You Need to Know (or What is Common Knowledge?)
Common knowledge: facts that can be found in numerous places and are likely to be known by a lot of people.
Example: John F. Kennedy was elected President of the United States in 1960.
This is generally known information. You do not need to document this fact.
However, you must document facts that are not generally known and ideas that interpret facts.
Example: According to the American Family Leave Coalitions new book, Family Issues and Congress, President Bushs
relationship with Congress has hindered family leave legislation (6).
The idea that Bushs relationship with Congress has hindered family leave legislation is not a fact but
aninterpretation; consequently, you need to cite your source.
Quotation: using someones words. When you quote, place the passage you are using in quotation marks, and document the
source according to a standard documentation style.
The following example uses the Modern Language Associations style:
Example: According to Peter S. Pritchard in USA Today, Public schools need reform but theyre irreplaceable in teaching all the
nations young (14).
Paraphrase: using someones ideas, but putting them in your own words. This is probably the skill you will use most when
incorporating sources into your writing. Although you use your own words to paraphrase, you must still acknowledge the source of
the information.
Produced by Writing Tutorial Services, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN
Plagiarism
Plagiarism is taking the ideas or words of another and passing them off as one's own. In an
academic community, intentional plagiarism is an especially serious violation of trust. For how
can teachers help students learn the skills they need if students are not truthful about the work
they do?
It is not surprising, then, that plagiarism is one of the offenses listed in the Baylor Honor
Code. In fact, as the excerpt at left emphatically states, the students who created the code in
1916 and who have pledged to uphold it in the decades that followed believe that students who
plagiarize should not be part of the Baylor community.
The school's faculty understand, however, that learning to avoid plagiarism is an intellectual
journey as well as a moral matter. This guide is our attempt to help students understand what
plagiarism is and teach them the skills to avoid it.
Hurting oneself--and others
The major consequence of plagiarism is that people who engage in it hurt
themselves. Good research and writing involve a host of skills: for a start,
evaluating sources, taking careful notes, selecting appropriate quotations,
paraphrasing, and giving credit to others for their ideas and words. Students
who plagiarize may never learn these skills, and life in college and beyond
can be difficult without them.
Of course people who engage in plagiarism also hurt others: for one, their
classmates, and for another, the school or university they attend. At the very
least, turning in plagiarized work is unfair to students who do their own
work. It also jeopardizes the integrity of the grading system. And whether
detected or not, plagiarism violates the implicit contract of the
schoolroom: that students and teachers are working together to help students
learn knowledge and skills that will enable them to fulfill their potential.
Plagiarism also undermines the whole notion of academic integrity on which the academic world is
grounded. All knowledge depends on previous knowledge; as Sir Isaac Newton said, "If I have seen further
[than certain other men] it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants" (Bartleby.com). We want people to be
able to evaluate what we say, and we want to acknowledge our debt to those whose thinking has helped
us. We do so by carefully crediting others for their ideas and their words.
Penalties at Baylor

As we have already seen, plagiarism can be unintentional or
intentional.
As the quotation at right demonstrates, intentional plagiarism is a
clear-cut matter at Baylor. Teachers turn in any students they
believe have willfully plagiarized. The Honor Council hears each
case, and students found guilty suffer these consequences:
1) They receive a 0 on the work in question.
2) They are suspended, most often for two or three days. The
length depends largely on the student's behavior before the
Honor Council; truthfulness and contrition are appropriate
when the evidence is compelling. Ordinarily the student
misses a day of school for the first day of suspension (and
receives a 0 on all work that day). Remaining days are
"reverse suspension"; students serve these during the next
vacation.
3) Students who are convicted of plagiarism also receive
specific final warning and will suffer expulsion if they are
convicted of a further honor offense.


"at Baylor, as at other
academic institutions,
intentional plagiarism is an
honor offense, and teachers
turn in to the Honor Council
any student whose work they
believe to be dishonest."
--The B Book: A Handbook
for Students and Parents
The penalties for unintentional plagiarism are not quite as clear-cut. A teacher may assign plagiarized work
an academic penalty (most often a 0) but not send the author of that work to the Honor Council if the teacher
is convinced--given the age of the student, the nature of the offense, and the scope of the offense--that the
student did not intend to plagiarize. For example, if a younger student, in taking notes, failed to quote a
six-word phrase and that phrase ended up in his or her essay without quotation marks but with the source
cited, a teacher might conclude that the student had been careless rather than intentionally dishonest.

"The honor committee [at the
University of Virginia], made up
entirely of students, can expel
current students if they are found
guilty [of plagiarism]. It also
could recommend that the
students who have already
graduated lose their diplomas."
--"Computer Program Targets 122
Penalties in college and beyond
Colleges and universities take plagiarism every bit as
seriously as Baylor does, and they assume that students know,
or should know, how to avoid it. Students may be suspended
or expelled from college for plagiarizing. As the passage at
left notes, they may also have their diplomas revoked after
they have graduated.
Accusations of plagiarism in one's professional life can have
even more devastating consequences. People in academic and
scientific communities have lost their jobs and their
Virginia Students for Plagiarism" reputations for copying the work of others without giving
credit to it. Some popular historians have recently been
embroiled in plagiarism controversies and as a result have lost
credibility in many academic communities.
The good news about understanding plagiarism is that the concept at heart is simple: we give credit to
others for their ideas, and we give credit to others for their words.





"instead of showing
what you don't know,
citing your sources
provides evidence of
what you doknow, and
of theauthority behind
your knowledge."

UNC Writing Center
Handout |Plagiarism
Giving credit for others' ideas

The author of Ecclesiastes, a book of the Old Testament, wrote,
"there is nothing new under the sun" (1:9). Teachers love for
students to be original, but they know that whatever spark from a
student's mind creates an original thought, the ideas of others
provided the fuel for that thought. Therefore, as the handout from
the UNC Writing Center notes at left, there is no shame in citing
the ideas of others--in fact, just the opposite.

For example, students who read criticism on a novel want their
teachers to know that they have understood the criticism and are
responding to it. Students who read about historical theories want
their teachers to know that they are thinking about those
theories. Students who read about scientific discoveries want
their teachers to know that they are aware of those
discoveries--and so on.


Giving credit for others' words

Just as we give credit for ideas, so too we give credit for words
by enclosing them in quotation marks and indicating the
source. However simple, it is never acceptable to cut and paste a
passage (whether a few words or a paragraph or a page) and pretend
it is our own work.

As Emerson's quotation at right indicates, a quotation can
provide wonderful support. But rather than pretend we have
written the quotation, we enclose it in quotation marks and
acknowledge the source. In this way we are giving credit to the
author and making others aware of his or her words.

"By necessity, by
proclivity, and by
delight, we all quote."
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
(Bartleby.com)



Common knowledge

If it is clear that we need to give others credit for their ideas and their words, it is not always clear
what we don't have to give credit for. People generally agree that there is no need to provide credit for
facts that are common knowledge, but within the academic community there is some disagreement
about what common knowledge is.

Most everyone agrees that common knowledge includes facts that virtually everyone knows: for
example, that George Washington was the first President of the United States. Beyond those most
elementary of facts, the picture is not so clear. Some teachers consider common knowledge what
students knew before they entered a course; others consider common knowledge what everyone in a
given class knows at a given time. And some teachers consider common knowledge any fact that a
person could easily find in a variety of general reference works.

Baylor teachers agree with the final position: if we can easily find a fact in a variety of sources,
then we can consider that fact common knowledge. A good rule of thumb is that we can consider as
part of the body of common knowledge any fact that we find in three unrelated, reliable reference
sources (not three places on the Internet copied from the same source).

Beyond this basic agreement, different disciplines have developed different conventions about
common knowledge. To see the conventions that Baylor teachers expect students to follow, click on
the links below.

The purpose of research is to take information from several sources, play with it in our own
minds, and put it together in our own words, including others' quotations (where helpful)
and acknowledging others' ideas. More often than not, plagiarism occurs when students try
to take information from sources and stick it into their writing without first running it
through their own brains. By short-circuiting the process of research, they invite disaster.



"write your notes with
the book closed to
ensure that you are
putting the ideas into
your own words"

UNC Writing Center
Handout on Plagiarism
Taking notes

Taking notes on sources is a critical first step in avoiding
plagiarism. Students who try to skip this step and write while
they are looking directly at their sources will almost certainly
plagiarize.
Instead, once we find a helpful source, we take notes on it. As
theUNC Writing Center Handout on Plagiarism states, "Taking
careful notes is simply the best way to avoid plagiarism." The
handout continues, "try thinking about your notes as a transitional
'space' between what you've read and what you're preparing to
write." Furthermore, as we can see from the quotation highlighted
at the left, the UNC handout suggests that we take notes without
looking at the original source.
When we read a passage in preparation for taking notes on it,
we need to give ourselves time to consider what information may
be helpful to us. Sometimes a source may provide more detail
than we need, and we simply summarize the point of the passage
(in our own words, in fragmentary form). Other times a whole
passage may be important, and we need to take detailed notes on
it. To do so, we read it carefully, put it aside, and then jot down
relevant information from it--writing fragments rather than phrases
or sentences to protect ourselves from unintentional plagiarism.
Quotations, of course, are another matter. These we should
copy down exactly and put in quotation marks.

Looking up words

One of the great benefits of doing research on a topic is that we have the chance to learn words we
didn't previously know. But part of good research is making sure that we know the meanings of the
words we use. So when we come across a word whose meaning we don't know, we should include it
in our notes--but we should look it up before we use it, and in the essay or project we produce as the
result of our research, we should define or explain the word for the benefit of classmates who may not
know it.
For example, let's say we are researching the life of Geoffrey Chaucer, the author of The
Canterbury Tales, and discover that Chaucer's father was a vintner. In order to better understand
Chaucer's family, we need to know that a vintner is a wine merchant, and if we use the word vintner,
we should explain its meaning.

Paraphrasing
We take careful notes so that once we assimilate and process all of
our information, we will write in our own words and our own
sentence structures rather than in the words and sentences of our
sources. That is, we will paraphrase successfully.
If it is important to look away from the original source when we take
notes, it is even more important not to look at that source when we are
paraphrasing. We should have our notes in front of us, not our
sources--as the Online Writing Lab at Purdue notes in the quotation
highlighted at the right.
"write your paraphrase and
summary without looking at the
original text"

OWL at Purdue
University: Avoiding
Plagiarism: Printable Handouts

Unsuccessful paraphrasing
To quote again from the UNC Writing Center Handout on Plagiarism, "Paraphrasing does not mean
changing a word or two in someone else's sentence, changing the sentence structure while maintaining
the original words, or changing a few words to synonyms. If you are tempted to rearrange a sentence
in any of these ways, you are writing too close to the original. That's plagiarism, not
paraphrasing." Below are some examples of this sort of unsuccessful paraphrasing.
This original sentence is taken from page 921 of Baylor's U.S. History text book, The American
Pageant by Thomas Bailey, et al:
"The burly Khrushchev, seeking new propaganda laurels, was eager to meet with Eisenhower
and pave the way for a 'summit conference' with Western leaders."
Changing a word or two (plagiarism)
The stocky Khrushchev, looking for new propaganda recognition opportunities, was eager to
meet with President Eisenhower and to pave the way for a joint conference with leaders from
the West.
Rearranging sentence structure (plagiarism)
Seeking new propaganda laurels, Khrushchev was eager to meet with Eisenhower. He wanted
to pave the way for a summit conference with leaders from the West.
Quoting fewer than all of the words (plagiarism)
"Khrushchev was eager to meet with Eisenhower and pave the way for a 'summit conference'
with Western leaders."
To avoid such unsuccessful paraphrasing:
1. Follow the process outlined above, taking careful notes and writing from your notes.
2. Check your work against the original text to be sure that you have not accidentally used the same
phrases or words and that the information is accurate.
Also, remember that paraphrasing does not eliminate the need for giving credit for the ideas of
others. Even if you paraphrase, you must attribute the material to the author and cite the source in the
text at the end of the sentence.

Keeping track of sources
So that we can let readers know where we found our information, we need to be on the
alert from the beginning of our research to record the necessary facts about each
source. Baylor recommends (and most teachers require) that students follow the procedures
established by the Modern Language Association for student research papers. We can learn those
procedures by visiting the MLA website, consulting an MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers
(available on reserve in Hedges Library), or going to the excellent MLA summary compiled by
librarian Carl Owens.
If your teacher asks you to use a different style, as the Baylor Science Department often does, then
you must be careful to note what the guidelines are for citing resources using this style. At any time, if
you do not understand how and what to cite or how to cite properly, ask your teacher or a librarian.
When we use a book, we need to be certain to copy down all of the information necessary to cite
that book, including the page numbers of any quotations or other material that is not common
knowledge. One way to make certain that we have important citation information is to photocopy the
title page of the book (carefully noting the copyright date usually found on the reverse side of the front
page). It is also a good idea to keep our notes and the publication information together. If we found
the book in the Hedges Library, we can retrieve all necessary citation information from Athena, the
library's on-line catalog.
When we use on-line resources, we also need to note where we found the information. If we are
using an on-line database, we must note the name in our citation. We need the website title and
address for any Internet sites we use. We must also provide the date that we visited a site. If we print
out web pages, the date and web address usually appear. However, it is more effective--and less
time-consuming--to copy web addresses and paste them into a document for retrieval later.
The bottom line is that we must insure that anyone wanting to check our information can
return to our sources and see how we have made use of what we have read.