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OCC 5313: Methods of Inquiry: Avoiding Plagiarism

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Plagiarism

"Plagiarism: Intentionally and knowingly representing in any academic exercise or matter that words or ideas of another as one's own." - WSSU Office of Legal Affairs, 301.1 Academic Integrity

Examples of Plagiarism

Original Text: "According to the researchers' preliminary findings, those children who were vaccinated for influenza cut their risk of hospitalization by half." - Radwan, C. (2019). Influenza vaccine cuts kids’ risk of hospitalizations from flu: New data show vaccination prevents serious respiratory illness. Contemporary Pediatrics, 36(12), 27. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ccm&AN=140391463&site=ehost-live

 

Direct Plagiarism: When someone else's words are used verbatim.

Example: According to the researchers' preliminary findings, those children who were vaccinated for influenza cut their risk of hospitalization by half.

 

Paraphrasing Plagiarism: Changing a few words from the original text, but not enough that the main idea remains the same.

Example: As reported by researchers' first conclusions, kids vaccinated for the flu sliced their possibility of being in the hospital by 50%.

Strategies to Avoid Plagiarism

1. Make sure you understand what you are reading: Most times plagiarism happens because you don't fully grasp the idea being conveyed and therefore have a hard time condensing it into your own words.

2. Use direct quotes: If you cannot think of a different way to rewrite an idea or like the exact wording the author uses, you can put the text into quote. Be sure to give a proper citation with all quotes.

3. Paraphrase correctly: Quotes should be used sparingly. Make sure that your paraphrase does not match the idea of wording of the original text too closely or else it can be considered plagiarism because it lacks quotation marks. Paraphrases still require proper citations.

4. Make sure you are citing correctly: In-text citations help to make sure you are giving proper attribution to text, ideas, and findings that are not your own. See below for how to do in-text citations.

5. Check your references: Make sure that your in-text citations have matching references at the end of your paper.

In-Text Citations

The following are a list of the different ways you can format your in-text citation:

Author’s name in text (no page number):
Cassell and Jenkins (2000) compared reaction times. . .

Author’s name in reference (no page number):
In a recent study of reaction times (Cassell & Jenkins, 2000). . .

Author’s name in text (page number):
According to Cuno (2008), “For years, archaeologists have lobbied for national and international laws, treaties, and conventions to prohibit the international movement of antiquities” (p. 1).

Author’s name in reference (page number):
The argument runs that, “The term 'Czechoslovak' had become a rich source of contention almost immediately after the state's formation” (Innes, 2001, p. 16).

No known author:
A similar study was done of students learning to format a research paper ("Using APA." 2001).

  • Use an abbreviated version of the title of the page in quotation marks to substitute for the name of the author

No known author or date:
In another study of students and research decision, it was discovered that students succeeded with tutoring ("Tutoring and APA," n.d).

  • Use the first few words from the title and the abbreviation n.d. ("no date")