Plagiarism can be a confusing and overwhelming topic and is only one area of academic integrity. To learn more about plagiarism and how to avoid it, complete each of the steps below.
Step 1: Understand Plagiarism
Plagiarism is when you use another person’s words or ideas and try to pass them off as your own. However, plagiarism can take many different forms. To learn more about what plagiarism is, and why it’s wrong, view our short video on plagiarism. To learn about each of the types, use the Types of Plagiarism Infographic.
Task: Complete the Types of Plagiarism Practice Activity:
Step 2: Properly Quote and Paraphrase
Using outside evidence is important in academic writing, but those sources must be used appropriately. You can include information from outside sources through proper paraphrasing and quoting. To learn about these two approaches, go to our short video on paraphrasing and our Quoting, Paraphrasing, and Summarizing page.
Task: Complete the Paraphrasing Practice Activity:
Step 3: Properly Cite Sources
As noted in Step 2, you can paraphrase and quote pieces of evidence to include information from outside sources. But, all of that information must be cited within your paper using in-text citations and a separate references list. To learn about these two requirements, go to our Citing Within Your Paper page and our References List page.
Task: Complete the In-Text Citation Practice Activity:
Step 4: Check Your Work for Possible Plagiarism
It’s always a good idea to use a tool to check that you have properly used outside sources in your work. One tool you can use to help you with this is Turnitin.
- Turnitin is a tool that helps identify potential plagiarism within a submitted assignment. This tool compares students’ work with texts available online, in our university’s internal database, as well as any assignment submitted to Turnitin.
- You can submit your assignment to Turnitin before you submit it for grading so you can check your own work for possible plagiarism.
- For help understanding your Turnitin report, review our Understanding a Turnitin Report video.
For additional help, use our Did I Plagiarize? Infographic.
Step 5: Practice
Task: Complete the Is It Plagiarism? Practice Activity:
Copy and Paste, Find and Replace, Sharing Work, Collusion, Self-Plagiarism, Recycling, Purchasing, Remix, Ghost Citation, Plagarism