LibGuides: Citing Sources and Academic Integrity: Avoiding Plagiarism

Avoiding Plagiarism

Plagiarism occurs when you borrow another's words or ideas and do not acknowledge that you have done so. It is considered a form of academic misconduct and is a serious offense. If you have been found to have plagiarized -- deliberately or inadvertently -- you may face serious consequences. Please refer to CEU’s Policy on Plagiarism and Code of Ethics for specific details.

The best way to avoid plagiarism is to always cite your sources - both within the body of your paper and in a bibliography of sources you used at the end of your paper. Citing gives credit to the original author and allows the reader to check the ideas on which you have based your own argument. It is an essential practice for good writing and academic integrity!

Offending Strategies in Writing

The following table is quoted from CEU's Policy on Plagiarism, p. 7.

Severity of Offense	Example
Serious plagiarism	• Submitting as one’s own work a text largely or wholly written by another person or persons. • Copying or paraphrasing substantial sections1 from one or more works of other authors into one’s own text, without attribution, that is, omitting any reference to the work(s) either in the body of the text, in footnotes, or in the bibliography/reference list. • Submitting a thesis as part of masters or doctoral requirements which has been previously submitted to another institution in English or in another language.
Less serious plagiarism	• Paraphrase of a substantial section or several smaller sections of another text or texts without any reference in the body text, but the work is included in the bibliography/reference list. • Copying verbatim two or three not necessarily consecutive phrases, or one or two not necessarily consecutive sentences, from the work of others without attribution. • Copying verbatim one substantial or several smaller sections from another text without quotation marks but with reference provided within the student’s text. • Submitting without permission one's own work that has been largely or wholly submitted for credit to another course.
Poor scholarship	• Copying verbatim one small section, for example a paragraph, or several sentences from another text without quotation marks but with clear reference provided within the student’s text. • Summarizing an author’s ideas at length but only mentioning the author or the source at the end of the paragraph. • Mentioning an author with appropriate citation in an early sentence but no attribution in subsequent sentences, so that it is unclear whether the author's ideas are continuing or the writer’s own comments being offered. • Including a correctly referenced short fragment from another text but without quotation marks. • Using an author’s work with incomplete reference (e.g. page number is missing, or the work appears only in a footnote/parenthesis and is missing from the reference list.

1 The word ‘section’ is understood here to mean more than one consecutive sentence. A copied section that has had a small number of extra words inserted by the student may still be considered as copied.