Avoiding Plagiarism
Presented by the Center for Writing and
Languages
In partnership with the Integrated Learning
Resource Center
What is plagiarism?
• Plagiarism (papers, projects or any assignment prepared outside of class)
includes, but is not limited
to . . .
• Omitting quotation marks or other conventional markings around material
quoted from any printed source
• Paraphrasing a specific passage from a specific source without properly
referencing the source
• Replicating another student's work, in whole or in part and submitting it
as original
(Source: https://www.liberty.edu/index.cfm?PID=24212)
Documentation Styles
• MLA
-Parenthetical citations
-Used in English and sometimes COMS
• APA
-Parenthetical citations, date emphasized
-Used in psychology and other human sciences
More Documentation Styles
• Turabian
-Footnotes
-Used in history, philosophy, and religion
• AMA
-Sources are numbered and keyed to endnotes
-Used in medical sciences
Library Helps for Citing
• Placeholder—Rory will provide content.
Using sources
• Quoting: Using author’s exact words
• Paraphrasing: Restating author’s ideas in your own
words and your own sentence structure
• Summarizing: Briefly stating author’s main point in
your own words and sentence structure. A summary
is shorter than the original text.
• All three must be followed by citations.
When to use each method
• Quote when the individual words are just as
important as the message (e.g., poetry).
• Paraphrase when the message is more important
than the word choice. This is often the case!
• Summarize when you are dealing with a large
amount of relevant source material (e.g., you’re
writing a book review).
How not to paraphrase
• Do not try to go directly from the page to the
computer screen, word by word.
• This makes it too easy to copy the author’s sentence
structure.
• This method can also lead to awkward word choice if
you try to avoid plagiarism by looking up a synonym
for each word.
How to paraphrase
•
•
•
•
Start with a manageable amount of source material.
Read it several times to make sure you understand it.
Close the book or other source and put it aside.
Write the main ideas of the passage you’ve just read
in your own “voice”: the way you would say it.
• Go back to the original source and check your
paraphrase for accuracy.
Note-taking
• I think Rory is covering this as well.
SafeAssign
• Some instructors will require you to upload your
papers to SafeAssign.
• This is a Blackboard-based program that finds parts
of a paper that match other student papers,
websites, and some published sources.
• It is not a fool-proof program, but it is useful for
alerting instructors to possible plagiarism.
Your response to SafeAssign
• Don’t plagiarize!
• Don’t pay attention to the percentage. A paper with
a large number of direct quotes may have a high
percentage. That doesn’t mean it’s plagiarized.
• Don’t worry—your instructors won’t make decisions
based on the percentage alone; they will check your
papers and use their own judgment.
Questions?
• Ask us now, or contact
– the Undergraduate Writing Center
undergraduatewriting@liberty.edu, 434-592-3174
– the Graduate Writing Center
graduatewriting@liberty.edu, 434-592-4727
– Rory Patterson, research librarian
rlpatterson2@liberty.edu, 434-582-2230