How to avoid PLAGIARISM
Plagiarism happens whenever a writer uses thoughts or words that are not his/her ownand then fails to give credit to the originator of the thought or words. In effect, plagiarism is stealing because you are taking someone else’s work and not giving themany credit for it. It is very important that you understand that almost all colleges anduniversities have severe punishments in place for students who are caught plagiarizing.Ask your instructor about his/her plagiarism policy.Plagiarism can be very serious but luckily it is easy to avoid.
GIVE CREDIT TOYOUR SOURCE WHENEVER YOU USE SOMEONE ELSE’S IDEAS OR WORDS
. You will use citations in order to do this. At ITT, most instructors requiretheir students to use APA (or American Psychological Association) formatting for citations.The first step to avoiding plagiarism is identifying when you need to cite a source.Remember that EVERY TIME you use information that you had to get from someone or somewhere else, you need to cite that person or source. There are two main ways toinclude information from a source, and you need to cite whenever you use either of thesetwo ways.
DIRECT QUOTE:
A direct quote is when you use someone else’s exact words. Directquotes should be contained within quotation marks. Quotation marks are signals to your reader that what you are saying came from somewhere else. You always need to citewhen you include a direct quote in your paper.
SUMMARY:
A summary is a shortened account of information you found in a source.It is someone else’s ideas recounted in your own words. You do not need quotationmarks for a summary. It is important that if you summarize a source, you use your ownwords in the summary. If you use exact phrases or sentences from the source, you areusing a direct quote. You always need to cite when you include a summary in your paper.Your citation should come at the end of your summary.Document created by Emily Russell,ITT composition tutor
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