Avoiding Plagiarism

PowerPoint created by
Kimberly Cauble

Copyright © 2012 Kimberly Cauble

All rights reserved by author.
Permission to copy for classroom use only.
Electronic distribution limited to classroom use only.
 What is plagiarism?
Plagiarism, based on the Greek word for “kidnapping,” is
stealing someone else’s ideas or writing. Someone’s ideas and
writing is actually their personal property! You wouldn’t want
anyone to steal from you, and you don’t want to get caught
stealing someone’s property.

As you progress through school, the consequences for

plagiarizing become more severe.
• In middle school, you may be forced to redo the assignment,
given a bad grade, and/or put in in-school detention to redo the
work.
• In high school, you may be given a bad grade and/or suspended.
• In college, you may be kicked out.
 Avoiding Plagiarism
There are several tricks you can use to avoid plagiarizing:

• Paraphrase the information! Put it into your own words.

That doesn’t mean changing one or two words; that
means changing almost all of the words AND the
sentence structure.
• Give the author credit. Quote their words directly, using
quotation marks, or reword what they said, but ALWAYS
give them credit! This is called “citing your source.”
 Also…
**Wikipedia is NOT a good source of reliable
information. Anyone can add information to
Wikipedia, and sometimes, the information is
wrong! Some of the information on Wikipedia
may in fact already be plagiarized from
somewhere else! It’s a good place to look for
links, but never use it as a source in your own
work.
PARAPHRASING
 Is This Paraphrased Correctly?
Original Work:
“Just before 8 on the morning of
December 7, 1941, hundreds of
Japanese fighter planes attacked the
American naval base at Pearl Harbor
near Honolulu, Hawaii. The barrage
lasted just two hours, but it was
devastating: The Japanese managed
to destroy nearly 20 American naval
vessels, including eight enormous
battleships, and almost 200
airplanes. More than 2,000
Americans soldiers and sailors died
in the attack, and another 1,000
were wounded.”
(from
www.history.com/topics/pearl-harb
On December 7, 1941, hundreds of
Japanese bombers attacked the
American naval base at Pearl Harbor.
The bombing lasted about 2 hours.
The Japanese managed to destroy 20
ships, including eight battleships, and
200 airplanes. More than 2,000
Americans died in the attack, and over
1,000 were hurt.
NO!
Even though the student deleted a
few words and changed around a few
others, there is a lot of wording and
structure that is left exactly the same.
 Is This Paraphrased Correctly?
Original Work:
“Just before 8 on the morning of
December 7, 1941, hundreds of
Japanese fighter planes attacked the
American naval base at Pearl Harbor
near Honolulu, Hawaii. The barrage
lasted just two hours, but it was
devastating: The Japanese managed
to destroy nearly 20 American naval
vessels, including eight enormous
battleships, and almost 200
airplanes. More than 2,000
Americans soldiers and sailors died
in the attack, and another 1,000
were wounded.”
(from
www.history.com/topics/pearl-harb
On December 7, 1941, hundreds of
Japanese bombers attacked the
American naval base at Pearl Harbor.
The bombing lasted about 2 hours.
The Japanese managed to destroy 20
ships, including eight battleships, and
200 airplanes. More than 2,000
Americans died in the attack, and over
1,000 were hurt.
NO!
Even though the student deleted a
few words and changed around a few
others, there is a lot of wording and
structure that is left exactly the same.
 Is This Paraphrased Correctly?
Original Work:
“April 14, 1865 - The Stars and
Stripes is ceremoniously raised over
Fort Sumter. That night, Lincoln and
his wife Mary see the play "Our
American Cousin" at Ford's Theater.
At 10:13 p.m., during the third act
of the play, John Wilkes Booth
shoots the president in the head.
Doctors attend to the president in
the theater then move him to a
house across the street. He never
regains consciousness.”
(from www.historyplace.com/civilwar/)
April 14, 1865: Lincoln and his wife
attended the play “Our American
Cousin” at Ford’s Theater. During the
third act, John Wilkes Booth shot the
president in the head. Doctors tried to
help him and moved him across the
street, but Lincoln died.
NO!
Again, even though the student
deleted a few words and changed
around a few others, even changing
some of the verb tenses, there is still a
lot of wording and structure that is
left exactly the same.
 Is This Paraphrased Correctly?
Original Work:
“April 14, 1865 - The Stars and
Stripes is ceremoniously raised over
Fort Sumter. That night, Lincoln and
his wife Mary see the play "Our
American Cousin" at Ford's Theater.
At 10:13 p.m., during the third act
of the play, John Wilkes Booth
shoots the president in the head.
Doctors attend to the president in
the theater then move him to a
house across the street. He never
regains consciousness.”
(from www.historyplace.com/civilwar/)
April 14, 1865: Lincoln and his wife
attended the play “Our American
Cousin” at Ford’s Theater. During the
third act, John Wilkes Booth shot the
president in the head. Doctors tried to
help him and moved him across the
street, but Lincoln died.
NO!
Again, even though the student
deleted a few words and changed
around a few others, even changing
some of the verb tenses, there is still a
lot of wording and structure that is
left exactly the same.
 Is This Paraphrased Correctly?
Original Work:
Pearl Harbor, an American navy base
“Just before 8 on the morning of
December 7, 1941, hundreds of
in Honolulu, was attacked by the
Japanese fighter planes attacked the Japanese on December 7, 1941. The
American naval base at Pearl Harbor attack caused the massive destruction
near Honolulu, Hawaii. The barrage of many ships and planes, as well as
lasted just two hours, but it was over 2000 deaths and 1000 injuries.
devastating: The Japanese managed to
destroy nearly 20 American naval
vessels, including eight enormous YES!
battleships, and almost 200 airplanes.
More than 2,000 Americans soldiers
The wording has been changed and
and sailors died in the attack, and the structure of the writing is
another 1,000 were wounded.” different. This is a good paraphrase of
the original information.
(from
www.history.com/topics/pearl-harbor)
 Is This Paraphrased Correctly?
Original Work: On April 14, 1865, Abraham Lincoln
“April 14, 1865 - The Stars and was assassinated at Ford’s Theater by
Stripes is ceremoniously raised over John Wilkes Booth.
Fort Sumter. That night, Lincoln and
his wife Mary see the play "Our
American Cousin" at Ford's Theater. YES!
At 10:13 p.m., during the third act The wording has been changed and
of the play, John Wilkes Booth the structure of the writing is
shoots the president in the head.
different. This is a good paraphrase of
Doctors attend to the president in
the theater then move him to a
the original information.
house across the street. He never
regains consciousness.”

(from www.historyplace.com/civilwar/)
 Paraphrasing
The best thing to do when paraphrasing is to
read the entire selection and then look AWAY
from the work and try to put the information
into your own words. Don’t forget, though…
even though you may reword and restructure
the information well enough, you still have to
give the author credit in your sources/citations
for providing you with the information!
Giving the Author Credit
 Is This Cited Correctly?
Original Work: There are five oceans, and they are all
“The Earth's oceans are all connected to one another. Until 2000,
connected to one another. Until the there were only four. In the Spring of
year 2000, there were four
2000, the International Hydrographic
recognized oceans: the Pacific,
Organization named a new ocean, the
Atlantic, Indian, and Arctic. In the
Spring of 2000, the International Southern Ocean.
Hydrographic Organization
delimited a new ocean, the NO!
Southern Ocean (it surrounds
The exact words of the source are
Antarctica and extends to 60
used without quotation marks, and
degrees latitude).”
the student never says where the
information came from.
(from
www.enchantedlearning.com/subje
cts/ocean)
 Is This Cited Correctly?
Original Work: There are five oceans, and they are all
“The Earth's oceans are all connected to one another. Until 2000,
connected to one another. Until the there were only four. In the Spring of
year 2000, there were four
2000, the International Hydrographic
recognized oceans: the Pacific,
Organization named a new ocean, the
Atlantic, Indian, and Arctic. In the
Spring of 2000, the International Southern Ocean.
Hydrographic Organization
delimited a new ocean, the NO!
Southern Ocean (it surrounds
The exact words of the source are
Antarctica and extends to 60
used without quotation marks, and
degrees latitude).”
the student never says where the
information came from.
(from
www.enchantedlearning.com/subje
cts/ocean)
 Is This Cited Correctly?
Original Work:
“September 23, 1957 was no ordinary
school day for Elizabeth Eckford and eight
other African American teenagers in Little
Rock, Arkansas. Little Rock Central High
School, like many schools across the
country, was segregated. Only white
students were allowed to attend. But the
Supreme Court had ruled that
segregation, or the legal separation of
blacks and whites in public facilities, was
illegal. And these nine students, who
would be known as The Little Rock Nine,
would be the first African Americans to
attend Little Rock's Central High.”
(from
www.pbskids.org/wayback/civilrights/feat
ures_school.html)
I learned from pbskids.org that on
September 23, 1957, nine African
American teenagers in Little Rock,
Arkansas, were the first black students
to attend Central High School. They
became known as The Little Rock
Nine.
(Student also listed entire website in
sources section of work.)
YES!
The student said in the introduction of
their statement where their
information came from, even though
it was not quoted directly.
 Is This Cited Correctly?
Original Work:
“Gary Schmidt is a professor of
English at Calvin College in Grand
Rapids, Michigan. He received both
a Newbery Honor and a Printz
Honor for
Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Bo
y (Student also listed website in sources
and a Newbery Honor for
The Wednesday Wars. He lives with
his family on a 150-year-old farm in
Alto, Michigan, where he splits
wood, plants gardens, writes, and
feeds the wild cats that drop by.”
(from
www.hmhbooks.com/schmidt/)
Gary Schmidt is an award-winning
author and professor. When he’s not
writing, “he splits wood, plants,
gardens, writes, and feeds the wild
cats that drop by.” (from “About the
Author,” on
www.hmhbooks.com/schmidt)
section of work.)
YES!
The part that is directly quoted is in
quotation marks, and the section of
the website quoted is listed right after
the quote.
 Now You Try!
Read the following excerpts below, and paraphrase it (put it into your own words).
Correctly cite your source.

“A tsunami (pronounced sue-nahm-ee) is a series of huge waves that can cause

great devastation and loss of life when they strike a coast.
Tsunamis are caused by an underwater earthquake, a volcanic eruption, a sub-
marine rockslide, or, more rarely, by an asteroid or meteoroid crashing into in the water
from space. Most tsunamis are caused by underwater earthquakes, but not all
underwater earthquakes cause tsunamis - an earthquake has to be over about
magnitude 6.75 on the Richter scale for it to cause a tsunami. About 90 percent of all
tsunamis occur in the Pacific Ocean.
Many tsunamis could be detected before they hit land, and the loss of life could be
minimized, with the use of modern technology, including seismographs (which detect
earthquakes), computerized offshore buoys that can measure changes in wave height,
and a system of sirens on the beach to alert people of potential tsunami danger.”

(from www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/tsunami)
 Resources Used in this Presentation:
• tilt.library.skagit.edu/module4/plagiarism.htm (Plagiarism
image on Slide #1)
• sociology.camden.rutgers.edu/jfm
/plagiarism/plagiarism-jfm.htm (Cut & Paste graphic on
Slide #3)
• Microsoft Clip Art
• www.history.com/topics/pearl-harbor
• www.historyplace.com/civilwar/
• www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/ocean
• www.pbskids.org/wayback/civilrights/features_school.html
• www.hmhbooks.com/schmidt/
Notice how I cited my sources on this PowerPoint! 