How to Avoid Plagiarizing

Tip #1: Make Sure You Are Very Certain about What Is and Is Not Plagiarism

Tip #2: Give Yourself Plenty of Time to Complete an Assignment

Running out of time on an assignment is a main cause of plagiarism. Rushing to meet a deadline can result in carelessness (leading to unintentional plagiarism—see the next tip) and the desire to find a quick, easy solution such as copying someone else’s work. Don’t give in to that temptation! Plagiarism is a serious academic offense, and the chance of being caught, which is high, is not worth the risk. Software helps identify plagiarism, but your professors have also read thousands of essays and they are both very familiar first-hand with many research sources and very competent at picking up when the voice of an essay changes from “undergraduate” to “published expert.”

Avoid this situation entirely by starting your assignment ahead of the last-minute panic schedule and planning out when you will complete each phase of the writing process. Even if your instructor does not require you to turn in materials for each stage of the writing process (i.e., brainstorming, creating a thesis statement, outlining, drafting, revising, etc.), set your own personal deadlines for each step along the way and make sure to give yourself more than enough time to finish everything. Pulling an all-nighter might be an iconic undergraduate experience, but it does nothing for the quality of your work.

Tip #3: Document Everything 

Plagiarism isn’t always a conscious choice.  Sometimes it can be unintentional, typically resulting from poor documentation of your sources during the research phase. For example, sometimes students will write down an idea from a source using words identical to or very close to those in the original, but then when they go to write their paper forget that the material was not already in their own words.  Adopting good research habits can prevent this type of plagiarism.

Print, photocopy, take a photo of, or scan the relevant pages of every source you are using, including the title and copyright pages, since they have the information you need for a bibliographic citation. Your phone can be a helpful tool if you aren’t near a copying machine. When taking notes by hand (or typed into a file), list the bibliographic information for each source you use.  Make sure to put quotation marks around any wordings taken directly from the source, and note the page where you found it, and remember to put everything else into your own words right away, so there is no danger of forgetting that something is a quotation.  Documenting where all of your ideas, information, quotations, and so on come from is an important step in avoiding plagiarism.

Tip #4: Don’t Include Too Much Material Taken from Other Sources

Tips for integrating sources into your research.

Writing assignments are about your ideas, your interpretations, and your ability to synthesize information. You should use relevant sources to support your ideas using evidence such as quotations, paraphrases, and summaries, as well as statistics and other data, but don’t lose sight of the fact that your argument is central! Including too much material from other sources can result in a paper that feels like it has been pasted together from a variety of authors, rather than a cohesive essay.  Such papers also run a much higher risk of setting off plagiarism warnings in TurnItIn or other plagiarism-detecting software.  Try to find a balance: use enough evidence from credible sources to enter the conversation and prove your points, but don’t let the ideas of others crowd or take the place of your own thoughts.

Tip #5: When in Doubt, Give a Citation

There are certain types of information—typically referred to as common knowledge—that don’t require a citation when you include them in your writing.  These are facts that are widely known and can be easily found in a number of sources. They are not ideas that originated with one particular source.  Examples include scientific facts (for example, that solid, liquid, and gas are three states of matter), general historical information (for example, that George Washington was the first US president), or even information commonly known to certain groups of people but not others, if the certain group is your audience (for example, most musicians know that a C major triad includes the notes C, E, and G, even though many non-musicians would have no idea what a C major triad is).

For everything else, you need to include a citation, regardless of whether you are quoting directly from the source, paraphrasing it, or giving a summary.  If you are at all unsure whether something qualifies as common knowledge or not, give a citation. You can also consult a more experienced figure in your field, such as your instructor, to find out if something counts as common knowledge or not.