How To Avoid Plagiarism

HOW TO AVOID PLAGIARISM

Northwestern's "Principles Regarding Academic Integrity" defines plagiarism as "submitting material that in part or whole is not entirely one's own work without attributing those same portions to their correct source." Plagiarism can occur in many forms besides writing: art, music, computer code, mathematics, and scientific work can also be plagiarized. This document pays special attention to plagiarism in writing, but it is important to understand that unauthorized collaboration in a math or science assignment is also plagiarism.

In all academic work, and especially when writing papers, we are building upon the insights and words of others. A conscientious writer always distinguishes clearly between what has been learned from others and what he or she is personally contributing to the reader's understanding. To avoid plagiarism, it is important to understand how to attribute words and ideas you use to their proper source.

Guidelines for Proper Attribution

Everyone in the university needs to pay attention to the issue of proper attribution. All of us--faculty and students together--draw from a vast pool of texts, ideas, and findings that humans have accumulated over thousands of years; we could not think to any productive end without it. Even the sudden insights that appear at first glance to arrive out of nowhere come enmeshed in other people's thinking. What we call originality is actually the innovative combining, amending, or extending of material from that pool.

Hence each of us must learn how to declare intellectual debts. Proper attribution acknowledges those debts responsibly, usefully, and respectfully. An attribution is responsible when it comes at a location and in a fashion that leaves readers in no doubt about whom you are thanking for what. It is useful when it enables readers to find your source readily for themselves. You help them along the way, just as that same source helped you along yours. To make sure that our attributions are useful, we double-check them whenever we can. Quite literally, it is a habit that pays. Colleagues in every field appreciate the extra care. Nothing stalls a career faster than sloppy, unreliable work.

Finally, an attribution is respectful when it expresses our appreciation for something done well enough to warrant our borrowing it. We should take pride in the intellectual company we keep. It speaks well of us that we have chosen to use the work of intelligent, interesting people, and we can take genuine pleasure in joining our name with theirs.

A Note about Attributions or Citations

Usually the most helpful form of attribution is a citation (footnote, end note, in-text note) in which you give precise information about your source. Professors and disciplines may vary as to the preferred style for documenting ideas, opinions and facts, but all methods insist upon absolute clarity as to the source and page reference, and require that all direct quotations be followed by a citation. The best solution is to ask which method your instructors prefer. The Reference desk of NU's library has manuals available, but form is not as important as substance.

It is sometimes difficult to judge what needs to be documented. Generally knowledge which is common to all of us or ideas which have been in the public domain and are found in a number of sources do not need to be cited. Likewise, facts that are accepted by most authorities also do not require a citation. Grey areas, however, exist and sometimes it is difficult to be sure how to proceed. If you are in doubt, err on the side of over-documentation.

The following passages come from a number of sources, including undergraduate essays. They are all appropriately documented and each represents a different kind of problem that you will be facing in your own written work.

Examples of Materials which Have Been Appropriately Cited

I. Quoted Material and Unusual Opinion or Knowledge

Source:

The teenage detective who was once a symbol of spunky female independence has slowly been replaced by an image of prolonged childhood, currently evolving toward a Barbie doll detective. ... Every few pages bring reminders of Nancy's looks, her clothing, her effect on other people. ... The first entry in this series carries a description of Nancy: "The tight jeans looked great on her long, slim legs and the green sweater complemented her strawberry-blonde hair."

Jackie Vivelo, "The Mystery of Nancy Drew," MS., November, 1992, pp. 76-77

Use and Adaptation of the Material:

Nancy Drew has become a "Barbie doll" version of her old self. She has become superficial and overly concerned with her looks. She is described in the new series as wearing "tight jeans [that] looked great on her long, slim legs."Ð'â„- She has traded her wits and independent spirit for a great body and killer looks.Ð'І

__________

Ð'â„- Jackie Vivelo, "The Mystery of Nancy Drew," MS., November, 1992, p. 77.

Ð'І Vivelo, pp. 76-77

Explanation:

The writer has paraphrased most of the material, and she has borrowed a few of the author's words. She has also discovered that the paraphrased ideas are unusual (not found in other sources). Therefore, the writer has placed quotation marks around the author's words and has credited the author twice--once directly after the quoted material and once at the conclusion of the author's ideas.

II. Interpretation

Source:

One recent theory, advanced by the physicist Gerald Hawkins, holds that Stonehenge was actually an observatory, used to predict the movement of stars as well as eclipses of the sun and moon. Such a structure would have been of great value to an agricultural people, since it would enable them to mark the changing seasons accurately, and it would have conferred seemingly supernatural powers on the religious leaders who knew how to interpret its alignments.

Stanford Lehmberg, The Peoples of the British Isles: A New History, vol. I, (Wadsworth Publishing Company, 1992), p. 9.

Use and Adaptation of the Material:

If Stonehenge was an astronomical observatory which could predict