LibGuides: ENGL 125: Winter-Social Justice: Avoiding Plagiarism

Three Ways to Avoid Plagiarizing

Watch the following short 2:25 minute video for an overview of Three Ways to Avoid Plagiarism

How to Put a Direct Quote Into Your Paper

Direct Quotations

Knowing how to quote correctly is key to avoiding plagiarism. Words that are an exact copy of the original should always be identified by quotation marks. It is a way of calling out to your reader that the information is from someone else, other than yourself. You're telling your reader, "This is Sarah Robare", or "This is Anthony Bourdain".

Just plunking a direct quote down into your paper can make it sound choppy, however.

Watch the following short video of David Taylor from the University of Maryland as he discusses how to integrate quotations into your writing using three simple techniques:

Introduce the quote
Cite the quote
Follow up on the quote.

Additional Important things to remember about using Direct Quotations:

Use direct quotes when the original author's phrasing expresses the idea so well that no better way of saying it can be found.

Be careful not to over-use quotes! If you overuse direct quotes, it can result in a 'Frankenstein' paper that is a string of quotes sewn together by a few transition sentences.

Like the monster Frankenstein who was "found", and not constructed, when you put many quotes of other writers' works together into your paper, you end up with sentences that do not represent your own words, but the words of the other writers.

Remember that most quotes should be very short. A short quote is usually considered to be under two lines in length with the fewer the words the better. Even longer quotes should be as brief as possible. In general, the use of quotes should be kept to a minimum.

How to Incorporate a Paraphrase into Your Paper

The following short video by David Taylor, a guest lecturer at the University of Maryland provides a good review of how to paraphrase.

Paraphrase

A paraphrase is a re-expression of someone else's ideas put into your own words. While it is true that you do not have to enclose paraphrased information in quotes, you are still responsible for citing the original source of the information. You would use both in-text citation, and list the source on your works cited page.

It is important to make significant enough changes to the original passage so that the paraphrase is a genuinely new expression of the idea, not merely a rewording of the original passage. Using your own phrases and your own sentence structure is important when you paraphrase other writers' work. An incorrect paraphrase is the most common type of 'accidental' or 'unintentional' plagiarism.

Key points

First, it is important to recognize that paraphrased material must be credited.
Second, how you paraphrase can determine whether the material is considered plagiarized.

Let's take a look at the following original paragraph:

Original Paragraph

Intellectual honesty is the admission that humanity is linked together in a kind of collective learning process. Very little is discovered "de novo," that is, without a solid foundation in other researchers' previous exploration and understanding. Citation is an act of humility and an act of appreciation for what other scholars have pieced together about the nature of a particular problem or an aspect of some phenomenon.

Unacceptable Paraphrase:

An unacceptable paraphrase is usually caused by making only superficial changes to the original text such as replacing some of the words with synonyms or changing the sentence order. The paraphrase is so close to the original that it is considered essentially a direct quote without attribution (crediting the original writer). When you paraphrase in a way that too closely parallels the original, it shows that you do not have your own understanding of the subject and opens the possibility of misrepresenting the original author's ideas.

Example of Unacceptable Paraphrase

Intellectual honesty is the admission that humanity is linked together in a kind of joint learning process. Not very much is discovered new without really understanding other scholars' previous research and knowledge. Citing shows you are grateful and appreciate what other researchers have figured out about a particular issue.

This paraphrase is considered plagiarism because:

it only makes trivial changes such as:

Original text	Paraphrase
collective learning process	→ joint learning process
de novo	→ new
researchers previous exploration	→ scholars’ previous research
what other scholars have pieced together	→ what other researchers have figured out

it doesn't indicate where words are copied directly from the source, and
it doesn’t cite the source for either the paraphrased or the directly copied information.

Also a problem with the above paraphrase is that the meaning is not accurately conveyed from the original source (“Citing shows you are grateful” is a different idea than “citation is an act of humility”).

Acceptable Paraphrase:

When you have achieved an acceptable paraphrase, it feels dramatically different. It sounds like an entirely new way of expressing the idea even though every effort has been made to capture the original meaning.

Example of Correct Paraphrase

Hoemann says that there is very little absolutely new knowledge. Most of our discoveries take advantage of work done by those who have gone before us. The process of learning is, in fact, a long tradition passed on from generation to generation. Acknowledging the source of ideas gives recognition to the contributions of others in this tradition and is, as Hoemann says, an “act of humility.”

Hoemann, George. Electronic StyleWhy Cite? 14 September 1998. University of Tennessee. 3
Oct. 2000 <http://web.utk.edu/~hoemann/why.html> (site discontinued).

This paraphrase is acceptable because it:

accurately conveys the information
re-expresses it in substantially different words and phrases
identifies where words are exactly copied from the original (notice the term "act of humility"); and
cites the original source of the information

Also notice in this example that the original author is mentioned in the text. It is often considered good form to identify your source in the paraphrase itself, usually in the lead sentence introducing the ideas. The source of the small direct quote is also made clear by preceding it with the author’s name.