Research Tips and Tricks

The Oxford English Dictionary defines plagiarism as: “The action or practice of taking someone else's work, idea, etc., and passing it off as one's own.” Plagiarism can range from taking an entire paper to just a sentence or handful of someone else’s words. Even putting what someone else says in your own words is plagiarism unless you credit the original author or authors for their ideas.

Common forms of plagiarism:

• Complete: submitting someone else’s entire work as your own, such as buying an essay off the internet
• Direct: taking exact words from a source and claiming them as your own
• Paraphrased: using someone else’s ideas, but not words, without providing credit

Did you know you can also plagiarize yourself? Self-plagiarism involves using your own previous work in a new context without permission, such as re-submitting work created for one professor in a different course. Note that you will not always get permission to re-use your previous work.

Take clear notes. It is important to clarify in your notes where words and ideas came from. When taking notes, remember to use quotation marks as necessary, and consider writing your own ideas in a different color.

Give yourself time. When you rush, it’s possible you’ll forget to include a citation or quotation marks, and you likely won’t have time to double-check your citations.