LibGuides: Citing Sources: Plagiarism: The Basics

Plagiarism: A Definition

The Oxford English Dictionary (v.11, p. 947) defines plagiarism as: "the wrongful appropriation or purloining, and publication as one's own, of the ideas, or the expression of ideas (literary, artistic, musical, mechanical, etc.) of another.

Plagiarism is the use of another's words and ideas without giving proper credit.

Most cases of plagiarism by college students is unintentional and due to mistakes or misunderstandings. For a fuller explanation of plagiarism and best practices on how to avoid it, visit Purdue University's Online Writing Lab website Avoiding Plagiarism

Getting Citations from Databases

Omnivore, Google Scholar and most library databases will provide citations for sources.

Search to find books and articles. Click CITE. Select a Citation Style. Copy & paste or export. Proofread using the instructions on this guide.

Easily generate and copy a citation with the CITE button in Omnivore

Types of Plagiarism

Submitting another’s work as your own
Copying or rephrasing another’s work and not acknowledging the source
Using another’s idea or argument as your own without recognition of the source
Using a paper you wrote previously and resubmitting for another class (self-plagiarism)

Common Knowledge

Common knowledge is factual information that is widely known and accepted and does not need to be cited.

Abraham Lincoln was the 16^th president.
The sky is blue.
Broccoli is a vegetable.

Common knowledge can vary by your field of study. What a science major knows as common knowledge may not be familiar to a business major. Check with your instructor if you are unsure of whether or not something is truly common knowledge.

Citation Help

Librarians and Tutors are here to help you to cite your sources correctly and avoid plagiarism.

Library Databases, which are used to find articles, also provide tools to create citations. When looking at the document page, click cite to generate a citation in various styles. Always consult with your instructor if you need to double-check the citation against the official style guide.

Online Resources to help with creating citations and organizing your references/bibliography:

The Purdue OWL
Purdue University Online Writing Lab - Research and Citation Resources
Mendeley Ultimate Citation Cheat Sheet
Combines APA, MLA 8 and Harvard referencing formats and examples for different source types into one, easy to use document.
Mendeley Reference Manager
Annotate as you read. Cite as you write. Automatic citation and bibliography creation. Organize documents in one fully searchable, easy-to-manage library. Use desktop client, browser or mobile app. Free or premium.
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Mendeley is a free reference manager and academic social network that can help you organize your research, collaborate with others online, and discover the latest research. From Elsevier (Science Direct.)
Zotero
A free citation management tool to help you collect, organize, cite, and share your research sources. Create a free account and install on your desktop and in your browser.
ZoteroBib
A free service that helps you quickly create a bibliography in any citation style. ZoteroBib helps you build a bibliography instantly from any computer or device, without creating an account or installing any software.

Online Plagiarism Checkers - free plagiarism detection software:

Grammarly Plagiarism Checker Create a free account to crosscheck your text against over 8 billion web pages; it detects plagiarized passages and highlights sections that have been previously published elsewhere. Also includes a citation and grammar checker.
EasyBib Plagiarism and Grammar Checker Paste or upload your paper for a free plagiarism check and get suggestions on grammar and writing style. Directly add any citations you missed.
Duplichecker Copy & paste, or upload your content file and click 'search'. Each sentence is reviewed and the source websites from where the content was copied are displayed.
Quetext Copy & paste your text, then it will be analyzed based on lexical frequencies, phrase patterns, and many other factors. Then your text is mapped into an internal network where it is compared against the entire internet and other databases. After your text is finished being scanned, results will appear with an indication of an exact match, or a similar match with a percentage of similarity along with the similar text.

When To Cite

When quoting text directly from a source.
When you reword or paraphrase sentences or phrases from a source.
When summarizing a particular idea or argument.
If you are unsure, check with your instructor.

Examples

If you want to use the following original source information from Harold McGee’s On Food and Cooking, page 15:

Milk has been especially valued for two nutritional characteristics: its richness in calcium and both the quantity and quality of its protein. Recent research has raised some fascinating questions about each of these.

Use a Quotation

To quote it directly:

“Milk has been especially valued for two nutritional characteristics: its richness in calcium and both the quantity and quality of its protein. Recent research has raised some fascinating questions about each of these" (McGee 15).

Paraphrase or Summarize

To rephrase it:

Historically, milk has been prized for two nutritional properties: an abundance of calcium and the amount and quality of its protein although recent research raises some intriguing questions about both of these claims. (McGee 15)

These are examples of in-text citations using MLA Style and will lead the reader to the original source on the Works Cited page.