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)

Summarizing

A summary should be shorter than the original passage - much shorter.  Think of the summary as the bottle of maple syrup that is left after you boil down 40 gallons of sap.  Meanwhile, the summary should keep the author's original message in mind.  Make sure your summary does not change the intent of the piece.

When you look at the passage first excerpted from the source, you'll see that it contains parts of two paragraphs, broken into two notes.  You used the first note either as a quote or as a paraphrase, as illustrated, but the facts there are difficult to summarize.  To practice summarizing, you can look at the second half of the passage:

"Consequently, the American debate regarding censorship of hate speech is moving from traditional forms to newer ones found on-line.  In particular, the Internet has become a key organizing tool for hate groups.  As scholars have noted, the Internet is a powerful forum of communication with its broad reach, interactivity and multi-media capability to disseminate information.  The Web is providing an unprecedented vehicle for forging communities and making communication quicker, easier and cheaper.  These features inevitably result in questions about impact, especially when viewed as empowering racists and other extremists" (Leets 288).

If you used this quote in your paper, you'd have to indent it as a block quote, taking up quite a bit of the page.  A better way to use this information may be to summarize it, boil it down.  Your summary, which will be used in the section of your paper Concerns about Internet Hate Speech, might look like this in MLA style:

The Internet is attractive to hate groups, who find it an inexpensive way to rally people to their causes, but some watchers wonder whether the Internet makes communicating hate too easy (Leets 288).

See this summary in APA style.

Again, notice that the source must be cited for its ideas even though the summary's words were generated by you, the writer of the paper.

Now it’s time for you to give it a try. 
Let’s play the  “Is it Plagiarism?” interactive game!