In response to the statement "Plagiarism can happen when you give credit where it isn't due--like documenting the wrong source," this is TRUE. Just like it is considered plagiarism if you intentionally (or not) take someone else's words or ideas as if they are your own, incorrectly citing a piece of text is like giving someone else, who is probably completely unaware, that credit. So, even if you aren't taking the credit yourself, you just inadvertently gave someone else credit they weren’t due.
However, before you can avoid plagiarizing, you have to be able to identify what constitutes plagiarism. A couple of the most common (and sometimes tricky) culprits include the following:
- copying someone else’s words or ideas word-for-word without placing the text within quotes, or not identifying the owner or the text whose words you took
- The tricky part that a lot of people don’t realize: changing a few words using a thesaurus doesn’t make the original idea suddenly belong to you. It’s still the same, even if you change a couple adjectives or verbs.
Consider this: Think about the telephone game you may have played as a child. The first person to say something is the person who receives the credit. Now, as the sentence gets repeated from one person to the next, something within the sentence changes—a word is often interchanged, added, or removed. For a while, at least, the phrase probably carries the same idea, or meaning as the first person intended. But, in many cases, by the time the phrase is repeated half a dozen to a dozen times, all those words that were interchanged, added, or deleted, may have taken on different meanings, and may eventually having nothing to do with what the first person had said at all. The last person to repeat what they heard (or thought they heard) is much less likely to have plagiarized.
This is why, even without quoting directly, you must still cite the information, preferably at least by the end of every paragraph, unless you’ve interchanged sources, because while you’re less likely to stray off topic, unlike what could happen in the telephone game, it’s important to understand the context of the source, what you’re researching, and what you’re planning to write about, so that you can write about that expert’s idea from a source in as much your own words and understanding as possible.
So, to avoid pitfalls such as this one, I’ll talk about some of the easiest and most straightforward strategies that can help you avoid plagiarism by whatever means.
The first step to take if you want to avoid plagiarizing is to find a method of organization that works for you before you start your research. The commonly used practice is to use index cards for putting the source information of a specific text or article on it, meaning each source gets its own index, or source card. As you locate sources, label each card with 1, 2, 3, and so on.
* This means you will be writing your sources by hand, so write legibly and consistently. Include all information about the source that you would need for your works cited or bibliography page.
These source cards will come in handy when you are looking at information or ideas from that author/person (this also applies to videos, interviews, seminars, etc.) and you want to make note of what you think may be relevant/interesting.
The second step is to use more index cards to write down notes from each source without combining more than one source on the same index card. You can label that note card with the corresponding number of the source material's card. So, that way, if you look at some notes you wrote down that are labeled with a 3, you'll know that the source of that information came from source three. There are also a couple tips to make the note-taking process more efficient:
- Give notecards headings for the different sections of your paper. You could write this at the top.
- Include page numbers for each note.
- Never copy directly from the source, unless you think you might directly quote something, in which case, make sure you enclose it in quotes so that you remember later on, and follow the writing style's (MLA, APA, etc.) formatting requirements.
Again, write your notes by hand, because it’ll prevent you from copying and pasting material. When it’s a direct quote, however, and it’s an electronic source, copying and pasting may be ideal.
- When taking notes from a new page in the source, use a new index card. You may end up with multiple note cards that pertain to just one source. When this happens, all the cards would be matched to the same source, and the page numbers can be notated at the top right corner to keep them in order.
So, now that you have source cards and note cards, and have matched up each note card to its source card, you can double check to make sure you didn't accidentally give credit to the wrong person. To continue keeping track of who said or did what, when you begin writing your rough draft, the key to avoiding plagiarism is to be safe over sorry. If you're worried that you wrote something that could be considered plagiarism, give it credit. While you don’t want to directly quote every line of your paper, or put a citation after every sentence, giving credit is always the safer choice. Always identify your sources as you go, rather than trying to add them after you've written the whole paper, because you will not remember what belongs to who or from where, and this is where you will quickly end up forgetting to give credit, or assign credit to the wrong person.
At the very least, so your concentration doesn't get lost, putting the source card number in parentheses after the borrowed information will allow you to go back and properly add your in-text citations later. If applicable, you can put the page number too, since that may be necessary for some styles, such as MLA.
The number system will also help you keep track of what sources and notes you end up never using as you work on your assignment, and unless needed, you can then discard the unused sources to avoid confusion.
By staying organized, you will easily be able to review your work, or have someone else review it, and identify any mislabeled sources. It’s important to be methodical, patient, and review your work before you complete it.
You can always google some of your sentences if you have difficulty with putting it into your own words, and see if your sentence(s) appears in search results. If it does, you want to either surround it by quotes, and/or give credit where credit is due. There are also a lot of online tools, some that are available to schools, such as Turnitin.com, that will quickly search thousands of databases, looking for matches. If your percentage of matched words or phrases is high, you may want to take a closer look at your writing and see if it’s truly just a lot of common knowledge or if you need to revise.
In all seriousness, don’t rush through, or you may miss something unintentionally.
Be methodical.
Be patient.
Review. Review. Review.
And you’ll see better accuracy in your results. I've personally used this system with much success, and have taught students how to write papers using this method as well.
For more guidance, check out the following sites that you should find very helpful if you get stuck.
Harvard Guide to Using Sources
Purdue Owl: Avoiding Plagiarism
Good luck!
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