To Plagiarize or Not to Plagiarize
Plagiarism has become a hot issue due to the widespread use of the Internet. With the plethora of information available, it is much easier to plagiarize than in the past. However, many students do not really understand what plagiarism is, how it can be avoided, or why they should try to do so, since it takes more effort to write a paper without plagiarizing. In spite of this fact, every researcher, whether a student or a professional, should cite their sources of information to avoid plagiarism.
It is commonly said (first attributed to Casanova),
“Opportunity makes a thief.”
When a teacher asked one student why he cheated and copied the whole paper from the Internet, the student replied: “You should have expected it – it is so easy!”
- If you use another author’s work, you must cite it, or it is “unauthorized use”.
- Using any of the author’s direct words (even short phrases)requires these two indicators in the text:
- use of quotation marks on the borrowed words,
- citation in the text (author,year of publication, and page).
- The phrase “close imitation” means that changing several words does not suddenly make the text “yours”. You must reword it substantially, called paraphrasing, before you have excused yourself from using quotation marks. If the sentence structure is still recognizable, you have borrowed the wording from another author. (Changing one word is obviously not enough;looking up a few synonyms is not either.)
- If you have successfully paraphrased the work, you still need to cite it. Notice the definition also mentions “thoughts”, not just language (words and sentence structure). The information—opinions, ideas,data, pictures, etc.—still belongs to the original author.
General information, or “common knowledge”, is the only type of information which does not have to be cited. These facts and ideas are known by most people. A writer should be aware of the audience for which he is writing. If the readers will be those familiar with basic information in the field, it is safe not to cite it. But if the readers will be unsure of the information, it should be cited. Use common sense, and when in doubt, cite!