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Plagiarism
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BIOLOGY

Tips on how to avoid plagiarism (with examples):

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Table of Contents:
I. What counts as plagiarism?
II. Ways to avoid plagiarism
III. Examples of plagiarism
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I. What counts as plagiarism?

Any time that you present someone else's words as your own, it's plagiarism. Whenever you use someone else's words - from newspapers, journals, magazines, books, encyclopedias, the web, or anywhere else - you need to indicate that they are not your words by putting them in quotation marks and giving the proper citation. Merely rearranging someone else's words and writing your rearrangement in your paper is still plagiarism; the words and the ideas are not your own. Simply rephrasing the sentence the author used can also be plagiarism. If you're just finding synonyms for some of the words the author used, substituting them into the sentence, and presenting the revised sentence as your own, it's still plagiarism. The ideas and the way they are presented is still the author's in this case, not your own. Scroll down to the bottom of the page to see examples of the things just mentioned.

II. Ways to avoid plagiarism:

The obvious

	Don't buy papers from people selling them. This includes buying or copying papers off the web.
	Don't copy things from books, magazines, the web, etc. If it's in print somewhere else, it's not your words, even if there is no author listed in source!

The not-so-obvious

	Summarize or explain what someone else says entirely in your own words. Do NOT try to just rephrase what they said.
	If you use someone else's words, use quotation marks and cite the reference.
	Avoid using complicated scientific language and jargon. Write in simple, plain, clear English. This will help you to make sure that what you are writing is your own words. If you're reading a complicated or very technical piece, figuring out what it's saying in plain English might almost make you feel like you have to translate the whole thing, but if you take the time to put the technical language into plain English so that you understand it thoroughly, you can refer to what the author said with more confidence and be much more certain that the final paper that you turn in will be your own work.
	When you take notes on readings, keep track of whether your notes are in your own words or the author's words. This sounds obvious, but it gets people into trouble.
	Don't wait until the last minute to do the assignment. The temptation to try to get away with passing off a copied paper in order to complete the assignment on time increases as the deadline approaches. If you know ahead of time that you're going to have trouble meeting a deadline, talk to me about it right away.

III. Examples of plagiarism:

To understand what is and is not plagiarism, you need to understand the differences between plagiarism and appropriate citation and use of another work. The following examples illustrate blatant plagiarism, disguised plagiarism, and correct use of the original source. This material is taken from The Instructional Resources Center's Teaching Resources Guide, 1996, University of California, Irvine. The examples used are from The Random House Handbook by Frederick Crews, 1984, New York: Random House Press, pp.405-406.

Original passage in book:

"The joker in the European pack was Italy. For a time hopes were entertained of her as a force against Germany, but these disappeared under Mussolini. In 1935 Italy made a belated attempt to participate in the scramble for Africa by invading Ethiopia. It was clearly a breach of the covenant of the League of Nations for one of its members to attack another. France and Great Britain, as great powers, were bound to take the lead against Germany. The result was the worst possible: the League failed to check aggression, Ethiopia lost her independence, and Italy was alienated after all." --J.M. Roberts, 1976. History of the World. New York, Knopf, p.854.

Student A's use of the above passage:

Italy, one might say, was the joker in the European deck. When she invaded Ethiopia, it was clearly a breach of the covenant of the League of Nations: yet the efforts of England and France to take the lead against her were feeble and half-hearted. It appeared that those great powers had no wish to alienate a possible ally against Hitler's rearmed Germany.

Comment: Clearly plagiarism. Though the facts cited are public knowledge, the stolen phrases aren't. ("...the joker in the European pack/deck...", "...it was clearly a breach of the covenant of the League of Nations...") Note that the interweaving of the writer's own words with the source's do not render the writer innocent of plagiarism.

Student B's use of the above passage:

Italy was the joker in the European deck. Under Mussolini in 1935, she made a belated attempt to participate in the scramble for Africa by invading Ethiopia. As J.M. Roberts points out, this violated the covenant of the League of Nations. But France and Britain, not wanting to alienate a possible ally against Germany, put up only feeble and half-hearted opposition to the Ethiopian adventure. The outcome, as Roberts observes, was "the worst possible: the League failed to check aggression. Ethiopia lost her independence, and Italy was alienated after all."

Literature Cited: Roberts, J.M. 1976. History of the World. Knopf, New York, p.845.

Comment: Still plagiarism. The two correct citations of Roberts serve as a kind of alibi for the appropriating of other, unacknowledged phrases. But the alibi has no force: some of Roberts' words are again being presented as the writer's. ("...Italy..was the joker in the European deck.", "...made a belated attempt to participate in the scramble for Africa by invading Ethiopia.") (Note that virtually none of the words in the paragraph are the students. The only words that are the student's are "As J.M. Roberts points out..." and "The outcome, as Roberts observes, was...".) The work is clearly plagiarism.

 

Student C's use of the above passage:

Much has been written about German rearmament and militarism in the period 1933-39. But Germany's dominance in Europe was by no means a forgone conclusion. The fact is that the balance of power might have been tipped against Hitler if one or two things had turned out differently. Take Italy's gravitation toward an alliance with Germany, for example. That alliance seemed so very far from inevitable that Britain and France actually muted their criticism of the Ethiopian invasion in the hope of remaining friends with Italy. The opposed the Italians in the League of Nations, as J.M. Roberts observes, "feebly and half-heartedly because they did not want to alienate a possible ally against Germany." Suppose Italy, France, and Britain had retained a certain common interest. Would Hitler have been able to get away with his remarkable bluffing and bullying in the later thirties?

Literature Cited: Roberts, J.M. 1976. History of the World. Knopf, New York, p.845.

Comment: No plagiarism. The writer has been influenced by the public facts mentioned by Roberts, but he hasn't tried to pass off Roberts' conclusions as his own. The one clear borrowing is properly acknowledged.

©2003-2004 Dilek Sanver-Wang, MS
Los Angeles, CA USA.  All Rights Reserved.