When you are using others' ideas and words, you must give them credit. This includes whether you quote them directly or indirectly. When you are using your own ideas and/or words you don't need to credit anyone.

Must everything be credited? No. Ideas or facts that are common knowledge can exist in your paper without being cited. For example, if your political science paper on Presidential Response to Foreign Aggression: Kennedy to Clinton begins with the opening sentence:

In 1960 John F. Kennedy was a narrowly-elected President who became involved with the Soviet Union over missiles it had placed in Cuba, only ninety miles off the American shore.

The three facts in this statement are common knowledge and need no documenting; one expects educated people to be aware of them. How can one determine if something is information that is generally known? If it exists in several encyclopedias, it probably is accepted as common knowledge. But it is best to verify your facts before assuming they are common knowledge. If you are in doubt, it is usually best to credit a source.

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How to Avoid Plagiarism

It's easy to plagiarize inadvertently -- and it's easy to avoid plagiarism. Know what you are saying and what the sources are saying -- and don't confuse them. Often confusion and plagiarism occurs when one is taking notes.

Take careful, meticulous notes. Document everything! This takes a bit longer when gathering one's sources for the paper, but it will make the eventual production of the paper easier and faster -- and allow one to avoid the charges of plagiarism. Include all of your sources' bibliographic information on your note cards.
When taking notes from text in books or journals, place quotation marks around all that you copy word-for-word and record where you took it. If you are "cutting and pasting" or otherwise downloading from the Internet, keep exact notes where that text or image came from.

When paraphrasing someone's work, quotation marks are not needed, but crediting the original source is. If you paraphrase someone's work and take personal credit for it, you are plagiarizing. This includes using statistics that are from a book. For example, if you write the following:

The money income of the Hispanic household in 1975 was $24,749. and in 1996 was $24,906. This increase is not a radical improvement. In my paper I will attempt to prove that, given the booming economy of the 1990's, this is actually a decline in the status of the Hispanic.

The numbers in the first sentence are taken from the Statistical Abstract of the United States 1998, p. 468. If you fail to cite them with footnotes, you are guilty of plagiarism.

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Following is a passage a student wants to use in a research paper about media and its effects on society. Below it are some possible uses of the source text that are examples of plagiarism.

Today, we must look to the city of Las Vegas, Nevada, as a metaphor of our national character and aspiration, its symbol a thirty-foot-high cardboard picture of a slot machine and a chorus girl. For Las Vegas is a city entirely devoted to the idea of entertainment, and as such proclaims the spirit of a culture in which all public discourse increasingly takes the form of entertainment.

(from Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves To Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business. New York: Penguin Books, 1985), page 3.)

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Example One: Source Not Cited.

One could argue that the city of Las Vegas, Nevada, is a metaphor of our national character and aspiration, with its symbol of a thirty-foot-high cardboard picture of a slot machine and a chorus girl.

This is plagiarism, pure and simple. No credit is given to the author and his words are copied almost verbtatim.

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Example Two: Source Cited But Phrases Are Plagiarized

One could argue that the city of Las Vegas, Nevada, is a metaphor of our national character and aspiration, with its symbol of a thirty-foot-high cardboard picture of a slot machine and a chorus girl. (Postman, 3)

This credits the author's work but uses his words as if they are those of the writer of the paper. This is plagiarism, too.

One could re-work this paragraph to credit the author's work and words. This is a correct use of the text that is not plagiarism.

In Amusing Ourselves to Death, Neil Postman, asserts that the city of Las Vegas is "a metaphor of our national character and aspiration, with its symbol of a thirty-foot-high cardboard picture of a slot machine and a chorus girl." (3)

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Example Three: Paraphrase Too Similar to the Text

Many students summarize what the author says by paraphrase. This is permissible, but be careful not to use too much of the original syntax and phrasing.

The city of Las Vegas is perhaps a metaphor of American national character possessing as its symbol a thirty-foot-high cardboard picture of a slot machine and a chorus girl. (Postman, 3)

This is plagiarism. The student credits the author's work, but the student's words and syntax are too similar to the original.

The American character is preoccupied with entertainment and glitter. The symbol of this is Las Vegas with its theatre and gambling industry. (Postman, 3)

This is not plagiarism. It cites the author's work and paraphrases but summarizes the work in the student's words.

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Babbie, Earl, "Plagiarism," Social Sciences Research and Instructional Council Teaching Resources Depository: Other Teaching Tools, (27 July 06).

Dean College, Offices of Academic Affairs and Student Development, Student Handbook, (27 July 06).

Indiana University- Bloomington,"Plagiarism: What It is and How to Recognize and Avoid It", Writing Tutorial Services, 1996, (27 July 06)

Kirszner, Laurie G. and Stephen R. Mandell. The Holt Handbook, 2d ed. Fort Worth: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc. 1989.

Postman, Neil. Amusing Ourselves To Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business. New York: Penguin Books, 1985.

Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, unabridged. Springfield, Mass., G. & C. Merriam Co., 1961.

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Content Editor: Ken Garson, Access Services, W.W. Hagerty Library, Drexel University
Updated by Karline Wild, July, 2006.

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