………Plagiarism is the act of taking, intentionally or not, another's ideas or words, and by not acknowledging the source, leading your reader to believe they are your own: in other words--stealing. We can all remember the report we had to do in third grade on squids. We went to the library, opened up the World Book Encyclopedia, copied down everything we could and turned it in. We probably even got an "A" for being so industrious and accurate. Fortunately or not, it's no longer that easy. In the world of colleges and universities, plagiarism is a major offense and can result in a penalty from as light as receiving a zero on a paper to being expelled from school. It is absolutely permissible to use the ideas of other people in your writing -- in fact, it's imperative in research writing -- but you must acknowledge the author and source of the information that you use.
………Not everything used in your paper must be documented. For example, if information is generally known by authors of the field (not necessarily by you or your neighbor) and found in a number of your sources, you need not cite it to a particular author. But, if one particular author presents information that is particularly insightful or exclusive to that source, it must be documented.
………A few simple techniques, carefully used, will help you avoid plagiarism and the penalties associated with it. First, be very precise at the note-taking stage of your research, as that will help you avoid careless plagiarism. Be sure to document everything, especially information that is quoted or paraphrased. It is far better to over document in the initial stages of your research, and then later eliminate that which is general knowledge. Additionally, when paraphrasing or summarizing, be sure to reword the passage completely, and be sure to enclose in quotation marks any key words or phrases that you do use from the original. And finally, when writing your final paper, follow the rules for documentation to the letter, using quotation marks wherever necessary and using in-text citations for all quotes, paraphrases, summaries, and combination notes.
………The following excerpt taken from The Bedford Introduction to Literature (Fourth Edition), written by Michael Meyer, published by Bedford's St. Martin's Press in 1996 will be used to illustrate these points:
Reading a literary work responsively can be an intensely demanding activity. Henry David Thoreau--about as intense and demanding a reader and writer as
they come--insists that books must be read as deliberately and reservedly as
they were written. Thoreau is right about the necessity for a conscious,
sustained involvement with a literary work. Imaginative literature does demand
more from us than, say, browsing through People magazine in a dentist's
waiting room, but Thoreau makes the process sound a little more daunting
than it really is. For when we respond to the demands of responsive reading,
our efforts are usually rewarded with pleasure as well as understanding.
Careful, deliberate reading--the kind that engages a reader's imagination as it
calls forth the writer's--is a means of exploration that can take a reader outside
whatever circumstance or experience previously defined his or her world. Just
as we respond moment by moment to people and situations in our lives, we
also respond to literary works as we read them, though we may not be fully
aware of how we are affected at each point along the way. The more
conscious we are of how and why we respond to works in particular ways,
the more likely we are to be imaginatively engaged in our reading. (11)
Comment: Remember that a long quote is indented one inch on the left only, and is double spaced.
If we are to quote an excerpt precisely, it should be enclosed in quotation marks with a parenthetical documentation at the end:
"Careful, deliberate reading--the kind that engages a reader's imagination as it calls forth the writer's--is a means of exploration that can take a reader outside whatever circumstance or experience previously defined his or her world" (Meyer 11).
If we quote a passage directly, but choose to omit a few words or sentences, use an ellipsis to indicate some material has been left out:
"Careful, deliberate reading . . . is a means of exploration that can take a reader outside whatever circumstance or experience previously defined his or her world" (Meyer 11).
If an entire sentence or words at the end of a sentence are omitted, a fourth period is added to the ellipsis to indicate the end of a sentence. The text resumes two spaces after the ending period.
"Thoreau is right about the necessity for a conscious, sustained involvement with a literary work…. For when we respond to the demands of responsive reading, our efforts are usually rewarded with pleasure as well as understanding" (Meyer 11).
………Paraphrases and combination notes that are not general knowledge must be handled just as carefully. For the paraphrase to be effective, all key words must be changed, but the information is still cited is as if it were a quote. The style of the original passage should even be changed to your own in an effective paraphrase:
Although reading fiction requires much more involvement from a reader than reading popular magazines, it is not as frightening a prospect as Thoreau would have us believe (Meyer 11).
Merely changing a few words does not make for a good paraphrase. The following is blatant plagiarism, even though some words have been changed:
Fiction does demand more from us than, say, browsing through People magazine in a dentist's waiting room, but Thoreau makes the process sound more frightening than it really is (Meyer 11).
For the above passage to be a good paraphrase, the idea must be completely rewritten in your own words and style. If you want to use some of the wording from the original because it is said so well and can't be improved upon, use quotation marks around those words, paraphrase the rest, and you then have a combination note. Of course this must also be cited with author and page number:
In The Bedford Introduction to Literature, Meyer states that reading that is done consciously and with great attention "is a means of exploration that can take a reader outside whatever circumstance or experience previously defined his or her world" (11).
Although the act of plagiarism can carry dire consequences, it is easy to avoid. By carefully taking notes, documenting everything you use, and following the MLA conventions for citing works in your paper, plagiarism need not be an issue.
Copyright 1996: Jeff Andelora