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)

Quoting

If you decide to use a quote, you must use quotation marks.  Use quotes only when the author presents the information in a unique way, when there's no better way to say it.  To avoid confusion, always add the quotation marks during the note-taking process.  For parenthetical citations in MLA style, you will need the author's last name and the page number(s) on which the quote appears.  For parenthetical citations in APA style, you will also need the year of publication.  For footnotes in Chicago style, you will need the complete bibliographic information. 

If your quote is longer than four lines, as this one is, you will be inserting it into your paper as a block quote according to current MLA style.  So when you go to your outline, you see the subhead Growth of Internet Hate Speech and your note:

"Hate-based Web sites have grown dramatically in recent years.  In 1995 at the time of the Oklahoma City bombing, there was only one hate site¹ but today, the Simon Wiesenthal Center² and the Anti-Defamation League³ have documented about 2,800 hate sites.  The Internet has put the problem of incendiary hate into sharp relief, raising many difficult political, legal and social questions" (Leets 287-288).

To use the above quote in your paper, you should remove the quotation marks, indent two tabs on the left, and double space.  Notice that you punctuate a quote differently when it appears in an indented block.

Hate-based Web sites have grown dramatically in recent years.  In 1995 at the time of the Oklahoma City bombing, there was only one hate site¹ but today, the Simon Wiesenthal Center² and the Anti-Defamation League³ have documented about 2,800 hate sites.  The Internet has put the problem of incendiary hate into sharp relief, raising many difficult political, legal and social questions. (Leets 287-288)

Formatting the parenthetical reference at the end of the quotation depends on which citation style you are using. Our example, (Leets 287-288), is in MLA style.  See this quote in APA style.

You may shorten it, leaving the quotation marks intact, like this:

"Hate-based Web sites have grown dramatically in recent years.  In 1995 at the time of the Oklahoma City bombing, there was only one hate site¹ but today, the Simon Wiesenthal Center² and the Anti-Defamation League³ have documented about 2,800 hate sites" (Leets 287-288).

See this quote in APA style.

Or you may use a partial quote along with other adjacent information:

From only one cyberhate site at the time of the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995 to more than 2,800 by 2001, "The Internet has put the problem of incendiary hate into sharp relief, raising many difficult political, legal, and social questions" (Leets 287-288).

See this quote in APA style.

In any of the above cases, you may use a signal phrase that includes the author’s name and omit the author’s name from the parenthetical citation, like this:

In an article in the Spring 2001 edition of Communication Law & Policy, Laura Leets writes “Hate-based Web sites have grown dramatically in recent years. In 1995 at the time of the Oklahoma City bombing, there was only one hate site¹ but today, the Simon Wiesenthal Center² and the Anti-Defamation League³ have documented about 2,800 hate sites” (287-288).

See this quote in APA style.

Go to Paraphrasing.