Avoiding Plagiarism

As a university student, you are a member of a research community that is guided by ethical standards in all academic work including taking tests, writing research papers and publishing on the Web. Many students do not understand the extent of the rules for citing someone else’s work in the research process, and thus do not know when they are plagiarizing. However, it is your responsibility to learn and use appropriate research writing techniques. See the UWM Handbook for the official statement on Academic Misconduct.

A research paper should be a combination of your ideas and the previous research of other scholars on the same topic. You can use another scholar’s words, facts and ideas, but this borrowed material must not be presented as your own creation. When writing a research paper, you should not merely review publications and extract a series of quotations from them. You should be looking for sources that provide you with new information about the topic which you are writing about, that expand your ideas, provide negative and/or positive examples to help your argument and that lend authority to your viewpoint on the topic.

Plagiarism is when a person uses someone else’s direct quote or idea without giving them the proper credit. Even when one is paraphrasing from the original document, one still must give credit to the original author(s). Any information you have not created, must be cited. These are some sources used for research that should be cited:

Print documents, such as books and magazine articles
Electronic sources, such as websites and databases
Multimedia sources, such as movies and television shows

For more information, see the Search Path tutorial Module 6: Citing Sources.

Paraphrase and Attribution

A common form of plagiarizing is when you use someone else’s words to explain or support an idea but do not give them the proper credit. It can also mean that you paraphrased someone else’s work but did not give credit. It is important to know when and how often to give proper credit. Paraphrasing is an important skill for integrating new ideas into your work, but it is also considered plagiarism is you do not attribute those ideas to their original author(s).

For more information regarding paraphrasing and plagiarism (and for more examples), see: Plagiarism: What It is and How to Recognize and Avoid It.

Here are some examples of how to cite another scholar’s work without plagiarizing.

Original source	Plagiarism	Correct way to cite (using Turabian style parenthetical reference)
The fairy tale, as a literary/cultural genre, has traditionally been associated with women; and women have, in different times and in distinctly different ways, impressed upon these tales the nature of their deepest fantasies. (page 98 of the article “In Olden Times: When Wishing was Having…Classic and Contemporary Fairy Tales”, by Joyce Carol Oates, from the Kenyon Review 1997)	Women and fairy tales have traditionally been associated with one another and through time women have impressed their deepest fantasies upon these tales. (even though this sentence’s form has been changed, the original source has not be acknowledged)	As Joyce Carol Oates has suggested, women and fairy tales have traditionally been associated with one another and through time women have impressed their deepest fantasies upon these tales (Oates 1997, 98).
The fairy tale of tradition has been imaginatively transformed in recent decades into what might be called the “re-visioned” fairy tale, in which the archetype is retained but given a distinctly contemporary interpretation by individual artists. (page 98 of the article “In Olden Times: When Wishing was Having…Classic and Contemporary Fairy Tales”, by Joyce Carol Oates, from the Kenyon Review 1997)	Most recently the traditional fairy tale has been modernized by contemporary artists and transformed into what is known as the “re-visioned” fairy tale. (the term “re-visioned” was invented by another writer and borrowed without being acknowledged)	Most recently the traditional fairy tale has been modernized by contemporary artists and transformed into what Joyce Carol Oates has called the “re-visioned” fairy tale (Oates 1997, 98).
When Sacagawea meets York, she wants to know his relation to Clark, asking if he is a friend or a brother. Clark says he owns York, but she cannot comprehend what that means. (page 167 of the book "The Making of Sacagawea: A Euro-American Legend" by Donna J. Kessler, Tuscaloosa: The University of Alabama Press, 1996.	Sacagawea wanted to know York's relation to Clark, and asked him if he was a brother or a friend. Clark said that he owned York. Sacagawea, however, did not comprehend what that meant. (even if cited, closely copying another work's writing like this is unacceptable.)	It's also worth noting that Sacagawea did not understand the concept of slavery. When she met York (Clark's slave), she asked Clark if York was his friend or a brother. Clark was unable to explain to Sacagawea that he owned York as a slave (Kessler, 1996, 167).
The Chukotka Sledge Dog is a slow, scruffy, scrawny animal of farthest Siberia, a breed that is, for want of a better word, tough. I mean, really tough -- even by the exacting standards of that most proficient and determined of all Arctic operators, the husky. Food to the Chukotka sledge dog means a chunk of frozen walrus. Water doesn't come from a bowl, as it would for a working dog elsewhere in the world, it comes from having a chew on the ice. Not even in a blizzard does this dog get a kennel. Getting warm is a question of curling into the snow, and letting his body heat slowly melt the ice below, in order to sink deeper into it. (page 34 of the article “The Ice Dogs”, by Benedict Allen, from Geographical 2002)	The Chukotka Sledge Dog of Siberia is a tough breed of dog, even more so than the Arctic’s husky. The Chukotka survives by eating frozen walrus, chewing on ice and sinking into the deep snow to stay warm. (borrowing another author’s line of thinking without acknowledgement)	According to Benedict Allen, the Chukotka Sledge Dog of Siberia has been bred to survive the treacherous conditions of the Arctic. Allen believes that this breed’s survival skills are even more impressive than the husky’s. Some of the ways in which the Chukotka Sledge Dog keeps itself alive is by eating ice, frozen animals and lying in deep snow for warmth (Allen 2002, 34).

Original source

Plagiarism

Correct way to cite (using Turabian style parenthetical reference)

The fairy tale, as a literary/cultural genre, has traditionally been associated with women; and women have, in different times and in distinctly different ways, impressed upon these tales the nature of their deepest fantasies.

(page 98 of the article “In Olden Times: When Wishing was Having…Classic and Contemporary Fairy Tales”, by Joyce Carol Oates, from the Kenyon Review 1997)

Women and fairy tales have traditionally been associated with one another and through time women have impressed their deepest fantasies upon these tales.

(even though this sentence’s form has been changed, the original source has not be acknowledged)

As Joyce Carol Oates has suggested, women and fairy tales have traditionally been associated with one another and through time women have impressed their deepest fantasies upon these tales (Oates 1997, 98).

The fairy tale of tradition has been imaginatively transformed in recent decades into what might be called the “re-visioned” fairy tale, in which the archetype is retained but given a distinctly contemporary interpretation by individual artists.

(page 98 of the article “In Olden Times: When Wishing was Having…Classic and Contemporary Fairy Tales”, by Joyce Carol Oates, from the Kenyon Review 1997)

Most recently the traditional fairy tale has been modernized by contemporary artists and transformed into what is known as the “re-visioned” fairy tale.

(the term “re-visioned” was invented by another writer and borrowed without being acknowledged)

Most recently the traditional fairy tale has been modernized by contemporary artists and transformed into what Joyce Carol Oates has called the “re-visioned” fairy tale (Oates 1997, 98).

When Sacagawea meets York, she wants to know his relation to Clark, asking if he is a friend or a brother. Clark says he owns York, but she cannot comprehend what that means.

(page 167 of the book "The Making of Sacagawea: A Euro-American Legend" by Donna J. Kessler, Tuscaloosa: The University of Alabama Press, 1996.

Sacagawea wanted to know York's relation to Clark, and asked him if he was a brother or a friend. Clark said that he owned York. Sacagawea, however, did not comprehend what that meant.

(even if cited, closely copying another work's writing like this is unacceptable.)

It's also worth noting that Sacagawea did not understand the concept of slavery. When she met York (Clark's slave), she asked Clark if York was his friend or a brother. Clark was unable to explain to Sacagawea that he owned York as a slave (Kessler, 1996, 167).

The Chukotka Sledge Dog is a slow, scruffy, scrawny animal of farthest Siberia, a breed that is, for want of a better word, tough. I mean, really tough -- even by the exacting standards of that most proficient and determined of all Arctic operators, the husky. Food to the Chukotka sledge dog means a chunk of frozen walrus. Water doesn't come from a bowl, as it would for a working dog elsewhere in the world, it comes from having a chew on the ice. Not even in a blizzard does this dog get a kennel. Getting warm is a question of curling into the snow, and letting his body heat slowly melt the ice below, in order to sink deeper into it.

(page 34 of the article “The Ice Dogs”, by Benedict Allen, from Geographical 2002)

The Chukotka Sledge Dog of Siberia is a tough breed of dog, even more so than the Arctic’s husky. The Chukotka survives by eating frozen walrus, chewing on ice and sinking into the deep snow to stay warm.

(borrowing another author’s line of thinking without acknowledgement)

According to Benedict Allen, the Chukotka Sledge Dog of Siberia has been bred to survive the treacherous conditions of the Arctic. Allen believes that this breed’s survival skills are even more impressive than the husky’s. Some of the ways in which the Chukotka Sledge Dog keeps itself alive is by eating ice, frozen animals and lying in deep snow for warmth (Allen 2002, 34).