What is Plagiarism?

In general, plagiarism is deliberate and unintentional use of someone's words (verbal and written), ideas (concrete and implied), physical works (including artwork and photography), and digital content (including images, video, audio, etc.) without giving them credit.

Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary defines "plagiarize" as: to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one's own to use (another's production) without crediting the source to commit literary theft to present as new and original an idea or product derived from an existing source

It is important for you to know that you can plagiarize without meaning to, and regardless of your intent, there can be consequences from the university. The university and the library want to help you learn to avoid it.

This guide is intended to help you begin to understand plagiarism in college, the many different types of plagiarism, how to avoiding plagiarism, and the additional resources available to you.

Video: Plagiarism: How to Avoid It

Bainbridge State College. (2010). "Plagiarism: How to Avoid It." YouTube. Accessed July 10, 2018 from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2q0NlWcTq1Y.

Types of Plagiarism

There are many different ways to plagiarize someone else's work and all of them can result in disciplinary action by professors and the university, depending on the severity.

The most common forms of plagiarism are:

"Direct Plagiarism is the word-for-word transcription of a section of someone else’s work, without attribution and without quotation marks." This is also referred to as clone plagiarism by Turnitin.
- More information about direct plagiarism can be found on the Direct or Clone Plagiarism page of the Plagiarism library guide.
"Self Plagiarism occurs when a student submits their previous work, or mixes parts of previous works, without permission from all professors involved. For example, it would be unacceptable to incorporate part of a term paper you wrote in high school into a paper assigned in a college course. Self-plagiarism also applies to submitting the same piece of work for assignments in different classes without previous permission from both professors." This is also referred to as recycle plagiarism by Turnitin.
- More information about self plagiarism can be found on the Self Plagiarism page of the Plagiarism library guide.
"Mosaic Plagiarism occurs when a student borrows phrases from a source without using quotation marks, or finds synonyms for the author’s language while keeping to the same general structure and meaning of the original." This type of plagiarism is frequently called patchwriting and it most frequently occurs when students fail to paraphrase correctly. This is a combination of CTRL-C and Find-Replace plagiarism by Turnitin.
- More information about mosaic plagiarism can be found on the Mosaic Plagiarism or Patchwriting Plagiarism page of the Plagiarism library guide.
"Accidental Plagiarism occurs when a person neglects to cite their sources, or misquotes their sources, or unintentionally paraphrases a source by using similar words, groups of words, and/or sentence structure without attribution." This a combination of Hybrid, Mashup, Aggregator, and Re-Tweet plagiarism by Turnitin.
- More information about accidental plagiarism can be found on the Accidental Plagiarism page of the Plagiarism library guide.

The quoted definitions above are from the Dean of Students at Bowdoin College Brunswich (2018). Accessed July 10, 2018 from https://www.bowdoin.edu/studentaffairs/academic-honesty/common-types.shtml.

Resource: Student Success Series Video

Student Success Series, A Student’s Guide to Avoiding Plagiarism and Understanding Citations
There’s no way around it. When student’s enter college, they will be asked to write many papers. Work that represents their ability to understand concepts is written in their own voice and is their own work. One issue that can arise is the issue of plagiarism and lack of proper citation. This generation of college students have been raised on the idea of ‘open source’ and ‘free information’ as well as the ability to quickly cut and paste from any digital source. So, the concept of plagiarism may seem, to some, foreign and even unimportant. In fact, a national survey published in Education Week found 54% of students admitted to plagiarizing from the Internet. Plagiarism can lead to trouble in college or in their careers. This video will help viewers understand what plagiarism is, how to avoid it, and the proper way to cite sources. Closed Captioning Available.

Quick Tips to Avoid Plagiarism

Be sure to give yourself time to conduct research as well as to write your paper. The more time you give yourself, the less rushed you will be and the fewer errors you will make.
Provide a list of citations for all the resources that you used at the end of your paper
Provide "internal citations" every time you use a resource within the body paragraphs of your paper
Properly quote resources when you use a resource word-for-word AND cite your source
Properly paraphrase resources by putting the content into your own words and syntax AND cite your source
Properly summarize the main points of a resource AND cite your source
Cite your sources, cite your sources, and cite your sources.

Citation Styles and Manuals

There are several citations common in different disciplines. Be sure to confirm with your instructor on which style and version they want you to use.

Style Manual for Political Science

The APSA (American Political Science Association) manual remains the standard style guide in the Political Science discipline upon which students, junior faculty members, and well-established scholars authoring manuscripts, as well as editors, copyeditors, and proofreaders, can rely. APSA style, in most instances, follows guidelines set forth in the Chicago Manual of Style, 17th edition (CMS). Throughout this companion website, CMS citation numbers are included in parentheses, when appropriate, to refer readers to specific sections of CMS’s 17th edition.

The 2018 revision broadens the scope of the manual, by including style requirements for all four APSA membership-wide academic journals: American Political Science Review (APSR), PS: Political Science & Politics (PS), Perspectives on Politics (PoP), and the Journal of Political Science Education (JPSE), as well as 24 APSA organized section journals. The 2018 revision also embraces a decade’s worth of changes to the academic publishing world. A few of these changes include: manuscript tracking systems, online-only publications, open-access journals, social media, active-citation techniques, data archives, government research funding requirements, and more. While this manual can and should be used as an umbrella guide, authors are responsible for reviewing and following the specific requirements laid out by each journal prior to submission. Individual style requirements for each journal can be found on the APSA website.

Other Social Science Citation Methods

APA (American Psychological Association) style is most commonly used to cite sources within education, psychology, and science fields. This resource, revised according to the 6th edition, second printing of the APA manual, offers examples for the general format of APA research papers, in-text citations, endnotes/footnotes, and the reference page. For more information, please consult the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, (6th ed., 2nd printing).

The Chicago Manual of Style (CMS) covers a variety of topics from manuscript preparation and publication to grammar, usage, and documentation and has been lovingly called the “editors’ bible.” The material in this resource focuses primarily on one of the two CMS documentation styles: the Author-Date System (NB), which is used by those in information science, business, and other social sciences. It is also a preferred method for article publishing, regardless of the discipline. When a specific citation formula is not provide for a resource in Author-Date, default to CMS NB formula and rearrange the date so that it follows the author.

Humanities and Interdisciplinary Citation Methods

MLA (Modern Language Association) style is most commonly used to write papers and cite sources within the liberal arts and humanities. This resource, updated to reflect the MLA Handbook (8th ed.), offers examples for the general format of MLA research papers, in-text citations, endnotes/footnotes, and the Works Cited page.

The Chicago Manual of Style (CMS) covers a variety of topics from manuscript preparation and publication to grammar, usage, and documentation and has been lovingly called the “editors’ bible.” This methods is frequently referred to as Chicago/Turabian. The material in this resource focuses primarily on one of the two CMS documentation styles: the Notes-Bibliography System (NB), which is used by those in literature, history, the arts, and longer publications like books.

Important Note on Computer-Generated Citation

Most database and websites will have buttons to "cite" the resources for you. Databases typically let you choose a common format and will generate the citation based on this style. While useful, these computer generated citations often contain punctuation and formatting errors that can void the legitimacy of the the citation. Some instructors may take off points for errors in citations and, if the errors are severe enough, consider errors a plagiarism offense.

To avoid errors in computer generated or pre-written citations, make sure you check the citation by using a citation style manual.

RefWorks Citation and Research Manager

RefWorks is a web-based research manager that allows you to create your own personal database of citations and documents for both academic and personal use. With RefWorks you can:

Easily export references from electronic databases, the UNT library catalog, text files, websites and more into your account
Quickly create reference lists for papers and projects in the citation style of your choice
Store, read and annotate files.

Want to learn more about RefWorks?

Visit the Libraries' guide on RefWorks!

What You Don't Have to Cite

Your own ideas...but make sure they are your own
Your conclusion...if you are restating things you already cited in your paper
Common knowledge

What is common knowledge?

Many scientific and historical facts fall into this category (Lincoln was assassinated, Einstein originated the theory of relativity)
Things you would expect people would already know (the United States is made up of many ethnic groups)
Common sayings, quotes, or folklore ("ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country")

If you are not sure, ask your instructor or a librarian!

"Plagiarism 101" at St. Charles Community College (2018).

Writing Resources to Help You Avoid Plagiarism

UNT Libraries

The UNT Libraries has information on their website to help you with citation styles.

Purdue OWL

Purdue OWL has great suggestions on both preparing your research for writing and writing methods to help you avoid plagiarism.

UNT Writing Center

The Writing Center also has great resources for you.

Plagiarism Consequences at UNT

Plagiarism is a very serious offense at UNT. Even if you don't mean to plagiarize, you can still commit academic dishonesty. When you are accepted to UNT, you are expected to adhere to our policies and standards of Academic Integrity (as defined in University 07.012) in the Code of Student Conduct. Major violations can result in expulsion from the university. The university has many resources for students to help them ensure that their work doesn't contain violations, one of which is the UNT Libraries.

Information used to create this page come from various library guides by Brea Henson and contain references to sources used for educational purposes only under fair use.