Rhetoric and Composition/Plagiarism

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[edit] Overview of Plagiarism

According to dictionary.com, plagiarism is defined as the act of passing off as one's own the ideas or writings of another. There are three different conventions in writing in which you must provide reference.

• When you use someone else's ideas, such as when I gave the description of plagiarism, you should cite the source.
• When the way in which you are using a source is unclear to the reader, make it clear.
• Acknowledge any help you receive from someone on writing the paper.

Citing your sources is easy; do it and save yourself from getting in a lot of trouble.

[edit] Examples of Plagiarism

Take the following passage from Hacker, Diana. A Pocket Style Manual. New York: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2004, page 115:

Your research paper is a collaboration between you and your sources. To be fair and ethical, you must acknowledge your debt to the writers of those sources. If you don't, you are guilty of plagiarism, a serious academic offense. Three different acts are considered plagiarism:

• failing to cite quotations and borrowed ideas,
• failing to enclose borrowed language in quotation marks, and
• failing to put summaries and paraphrases in your own words.

If you wrote something in your paper such as this:

When writing a research paper it is important to acknowledge your debt to the writers of those sources. It is a collaboration between you and your sources. Failure to not acknowledge your sources is an act of plagiarism.

and did not put any reference to Hacker, it would be plagiarism. The proper way to use the work would be this:

Diana Hacker stresses how important it is "to acknowledge your debt to the writers" of sources you use in your writing. She states that your paper "is a collaboration between you and your sources". "failure to not acknowledge your sources is an act of plagiarism" (Hacker 115).

It is also important to not only cite your sources in your work but also include a detailed reference to the work at the end of your paper on the works cited page. An example for the previous source is below:

Hacker, Diana. A Pocket Style Manual. New York: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2004.

[edit] Rules to Avoid Plagiarism

The following rules are taken from Rosen, Leonard. The Academic Writer's Handbook: Instructor's Copy. 2006, pages 122-124.

• When quoting another writer, use quotation marks and give credit.
• When restating the ideas of others in your words, give credit.
• Avoid using words, phrases, or sentence structures from the original source.