Don't Plagiarize

DON’T PLAGIARIZE

Plagiarism is using someone else’s ideas as if they were your own. It’s dishonest to present other people’s ideas as your own, and it will usually get you in very serious trouble—in school, at work, everywhere. This doesn’t mean you can’t use your research in your paper, but you must give the credit for the ideas that are not your own and are not “common knowledge” to the source you got the information from.What is common knowledge? It’s information that many have—most of the information in an encyclopedia, for example, is common knowledge.

Here are four strategies for avoiding plagiarism.

■ Quote—copy the text you want to use in your paper word-for-word and surround it with quotation

marks. Then, cite the source in one of the ways described below. Be careful! You don’t want

your entire paper to be long quotations from other sources. Use quotations sparingly and only

when they really add to your paper.

■ Paraphrase—rewrite the main idea and the supporting details in your own words. Then, cite the

source in one of the ways described below.

■ Summarize—restate the main idea in your own words. Unlike paraphrasing, summarizing is very

general. Then, cite the source in one of the ways described below.

■ Interpret—add your own thoughts. Take the information you have collected and tell your reader

what your own conclusions are. Because these are your own ideas, you do not need to cite a source

for them.

Pg. 133-134, Better Writing Right Now!, Francine D. Galko, LearningExpress, LLC, New York, 2001.