First Things First . . .

What is plagiarism?

Who cares?

Why is plagiarism difficult to avoid?

Definite don'ts

What happens if you are accused?

How to Avoid Plagiarism

Use valid, credible sources for information

► Take careful notes

Quoting, paraphrasing, and summarizing

Giving Credit

Papers

Presentations, websites, etc.

Citation styles

Is it plagiarism? (interactive game)

Copyright

What's the deal with the © ?

Is it copyright infringement? (interactive game)

Take careful notes

Copying and pasting is not necessarily plagiarism. Look at it this way: What did people do to write research papers before the Internet and cheap photocopies? They went to the library with a stack of note cards and wrote down summaries, quotes, and paraphrases, carefully noting the page number of each piece of information. You can do the same basic thing with your computer. Think of the process as creating electronic note cards.

Step 1. Prewrite and research.

Let’s pretend you’re writing the paper in MLA style for your English Composition 100F class. The broad topic is the First Amendment. Using the brainstorming method, you narrow the topic to freedom of speech, narrow it again to hate speech, and go looking for sources. After a quick search on one of the library’s databases, you find you can narrow the topic even further to Internet hate speech, or cyberhate. Gather your sources and record all the bibliographic information. To save time, have your citation style handbook (MLA, APA, Chicago, CBE) handy (or go to the citation styles section of this website) and type in the information in the required format. That way, there’s little chance you will leave out a required piece of information. And if you have a full citation, you’ll be able to find the source again in no time.

Here’s a source that would be valuable for your cyberhate paper.

Leets, Laura.  “Responses to Internet Hate Sites:  Is Speech Too Free in Cyberspace?.”  Communication Law and Policy 6.2  (Fall 2001):   31 pp.  Academic Search Premier.  EBSCOhost.  4792666.  Mantor Lib., Farmington, ME.  10 Jun. 2002  <http://ehostvgw3.epnet.com> .

(You found the source on a database, so the citation must show the path you took to find the article.  This citation does not look exactly as it should in your list of works cited.  It should be double spaced with hanging indents. To see proper format of citations, go to Citation styles.)

See this citation in APA style or Chicago style.

Go to Step 2: Choose a passage from the source