Ms.

Smith Coan Middle School

To avoid plagiarism
Keep track of your research.
Use quotations, summaries or paraphrases. Don't copy and paste!

Dont procrastinate.

Do I have to give credit for everything I write?

No. You do not have to give credit for information that

is considered common knowledge, for example:

George Bush is a Republican from Texas. Salt Lake City is the capital of Utah.

The Nile is a river in Egypt.

But, if you use someone's idea or their interpretation

of an idea or event, then you must give credit.

Avoiding plagiarism by summarizing or paraphrasing means more than switching/adding/deleting a few words.

Using Quotations
You must use quotation marks if you are taking something directly (word for word) from the information source. Quotations must be attributed to the original author.
From the article, you like the sentence that says However, body art is going mainstream and growing in popularity, particularly among young people.

So in your paper, you will incorporate that sentence. The first paragraph of your research paper says:

Tattoos and body piercings are becoming more and more commonplace. In fact, if you are standing on a city corner in any city in the United States, you are likely to see a lot of tattoos and body piercings on people walking by. According to an article found in the USA Today Magazine, body art is going mainstream and growing in popularity, especially among young people. (USA Today Magazine 10).
Notice that quotation marks are used around the sentence that was directly borrowed from the article and the reader was told where the quote was found.

Using Paraphrasing

Paraphrasing means putting information from a source into your own words. A paraphrase is generally the same length or slightly shorter than the original source. For this example, lets try paraphrasing the following section.

Our Paraphrase
Just 10 years ago, people in charge of hiring would have placed resumes of people with visible tattoos and body piercings in the discard pile. Today, that policy has changed. A significant percentage of younger generation employees have tattoos or other body marks. (USA Today, April 2006, page 10)
Notice that youve put the thoughts from the original snippet into your own words. Using the same words and phrases and just rearranging them is plagiarism and a serious offense.

Direct Plagiarism Ten years ago, most job search authorities would have said that

tattoos would have eliminated you from possible contention for a position. Times have changed. More than one-third of the younger generation now sport tattoos.

This is direct plagiarism. The text in red has been taken directly from the article.

MLA Format

Academic Paper Formats

Academic research papers may be written In different formats depending on the type of paper being written. Commonly used styles are:

MLA (Modern Language Association) - used in literature, arts and the humanities APA (American Psychological Association) - used in social sciences, such as psychology and education AMA (American Medical Association) - used in biological sciences, such as medicine and health

Citation Locations
Sources used to write a paper are acknowledged in two different places within the paper:
1.

2.

As in-text citations within the text of the paper (parenthetical citations), and In the Works Cited page at the end of the paper.

In-Text Citations
In the text of your paper, you should credit any work done by another person. You do this by using the basic format of (Authors Last Name_Page Number). These citations match up with the citations in your Works Cited page. Example:

The writer should place the source information directly after the end of the paraphrase or quote by the source (Ratcliff 25).

Works Cited Page

At the end of your paper, list all of the sources you used in a Works Cited page. Your sources are formatted in a specific way and are called citations.

Each type of source such as books, journal articles, newspapers, magazines, websites, and images require specific information to be cited correctly.

Book Citation
A book citation has six elements:

Author Title Place of Publication Publisher Copyright Date Medium of Publication

Book Citation-How to Write

These pieces are combined in a certain order with punctuation to create the books citation.
Basic Book Format:

Authors Last Name, Authors First Name. Title.

Place of Publication: Publisher, Copyright Date. Medium of Publication.

Book Citation-How It Looks

When the pieces for an example book are inserted into this format, the citation looks like the following:
Basic Book Format:

Sawyer, Sarah. Body Piercing and Tattooing:

The Hidden Dangers of Body Art. New York City: Rosen, 2007. Print.

Website Citations
Website citations can be very tricky. It is sometimes difficult to find all of the required information on the website. Here is some of the information to look for:
Author

Title of website
Sponsoring organization Date updated Medium of publication Date of access URL (MLA 7 does not require this, but your teacher may!)

Website Citation
Basic Website Format: Author(s). Title of Website. Sponsoring Organization. Date Published/Updated. Medium of Publication. Date of Access. <URL>. (if required)

When the pieces for an example website are inserted into this format, the citation looks like the following: Website Citation:

Van Vranken, Michele. "Tattoos." KidsHealth - the

Web's most visited site about children's health. The Nemours Foundation, Apr. 2009. Web. 19 Feb. 2010. <http://kidshealth.org/teen/your_body/body_art/ safe_tattooing.html>.

Summing Up
To acknowledge the sources you use in your academic research papers, you must use in-text citations in the body of your paper AND a list of Works Cited at the end.

My Citations
This power point was copied from several Helios power

points and adapted by Ms Smith. http://library.weber.edu/ref/hstutorial/heliosteaching1 .cfm Titles of Copied Power Points Plagiarism Quoting, Paraphrasing, and Summarizing MLA Format