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Plagiarism
Final Draft
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Tips on how to avoid plagiarism (with
examples):
The following information has been taken from the BioSci 100LW - UCI website
published by Rudi C. Berkelhamer.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Table of Contents:
I. What counts as plagiarism?
II. Ways to avoid plagiarism
III. Examples of plagiarism
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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.
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