Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Summary:
Since plagiarism has serious consequences, there are many safe practices that you can
employ in order to avoid plagiarism. Citing sources is the best way to build credibility for
yourself to your audience and helps writers to have a better grasp of the information that
is relevant to their topic or course of study. Mistakes can happen, especially when
plagiarism is unintentional, so follow some of these tips, which will help you improve as
a researcher and as a writer.
Reading & Notetaking
Take notes with the same citation habits you would use in the paper. Use a
signal phrase “According to [source],” at the beginning of your notes on a
particular source, include in-text citations with page numbers any time you
copy/paste or write a quote in from a source, and include a bibliographic citation
immediately after the notes on a source end.
If you have a lot of online sources such as journal articles in PDF format, use a
PDF reader to write your notes on the source directly so they do not get
disconnected from the original.
Use a citation manager like Zotero and keep a copy of your notes associated
with the source entry there (helps you cite accurately and also helps you keep
your notes together with the correct source).
Work Cited:
Kozol, Jonathan. Savage Inequalities: Children in America’s Schools. Crown, 1992.
Revising, Proofreading, and Finalizing Your Paper
Proofread and check your notes and sources to make sure that anything coming from
an outside source is acknowledged in the following ways:
If you have any questions or concerns about citation, ask your instructor well in
advance of your paper’s due date, so if you have to make any adjustments to your
citations, you have the time to do so. You can also schedule an appointment in the
writing lab and let your tutor know specifically that you want to make sure your citations
are correct.