There are two main types of plagiarism:
Even if you plagiarize unintentionally, you may still get in trouble. Some schools and/or instructors discount unintentional plagiarism, because they expect students to educate themselves about the topic prior to writing essays.
Some forms of intentional plagiarism are:
Some forms of unintentional plagiarism are:
Avoiding plagiarism is easy. Just follow these strategies:
Paraphrasing means you are borrowing what someone else wrote, and re-telling it in your own words and sentence structures, while maintaining the spirit of the passage. If you change a few words, or use synonyms, you are not paraphrasing; you are plagiarizing. See this link to learn more about paraphrasing, and to see examples. Please remember that when you paraphrase, you still have to credit your sources!
Cite your sources in a Works Cited or References page
Every source you mention in your essay must be listed on your Works Cited (MLA) or References (APA) page. Please refer to this guide to see how to cite your sources, or ask a librarian.
Cite your sources in the body of your essay
Besides putting your sources in your Works Cited/Reference list, you must also credit them within the body of your essay or paper, either within sentences or in parentheses at the end of sentences. Please see the library's citation guide to see how to do parenthetical or in-text citations, or see a librarian.
If you used sources you are not citing, place them in a Works Consulted page
A Works Consulted page lets your reader/instructor know you have consulted some sources that you are not mentioning in the body of your paper. For example, encyclopedias, handbooks, or textbooks are not normally used as citable sources, but they are useful as background information for topics. If you have used those and would like people to know you have, you can place them on the Works Consulted list. If you in any way use these sources in your essay, then they become works cited and must be placed on the corresponding list.
Not every single thing in your paper needs to be documented. Common knowledge is something you do not need to attribute to a source. But what is common knowledge? It is something everyone (or at least the majority of people) know or accept.
Software to detect plagiarism (Turnitin, SafeAssign, etc.) do not and cannot take the place of expertise, experience, and common sense. These software packages many times miss a lot of plagiarism that could have been easily discovered by a human being. Here are some strategies to detect plagiarism:
[Source: Cizek, G.J. (2003).Detecting and preventing classroom cheating. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.]
Some practical strategies:
[Source: Lathrop, A., & Foss, K. (Eds.). (2005). Guiding students from cheating and plagiarism to honesty and integrity. Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited.]