What is Plagiarism
Preventing plagiarism
Eliminate plagiarism
Paraphrasing information
Centralia's plagiarism policy

Plagiarism

Plagiarism is taking someone else's work (whole or part) and using i as your own. There are serious repercussions for copying someone's work

What is Plagiarism?

Turning in someone else's work as your own.
Copying words or ideas from someone else without giving credit or a citation.
Failing to put a quotation in quotation marks.
Giving incorrect information about the source of a quotation.
Changing words but copying the sentence structure of a source without giving credit.
Copying so many words or ideas from a source that it makes up the majority of your work, whether you give credit or not.

Avoiding Plagiarism

Plagiarizing assignments can have a serious effect on your college career. You may fail a paper or even an entire class. Ignorance of the rules isn't always going to be enough to keep yourself out of trouble. Review the information on the following tabs to learn more about how you can avoid plagiarizing!

Rules to prevent plagiarism

See the rules below for steps you can take to prevent plagiarism:

Use a citation for someone else’s ideas that are not common knowledge, even when your words are different from those in the source.
Include a citation for any ideas that are not your own which you obtained from a source.
Add a citation with a page or paragraph number for a direct quotation.
Use quotation marks for words or phrases copied directly from a source. Include quotation marks even if you copy only two or three words from a source.
Avoid the mistake of using a citation and copying some of the phrasing directly from a source without including quotation marks in the text or page numbers in the citation.
Avoid using too many direct quotations, even if you include citations. The bulk of the paper should contain your original ideas supported by information from sources. Using too many direct quotations causes plagiarism because the majority of ideas in a paper are not your own. To avoid plagiarism, check with your instructor for guidelines about the length and number of direct quotations that should be used in a paper.

Eliminate Plagiarism while Writing Papers

Use the following rules to eliminate plagiarism while taking notes and writing papers:

Allow time for writing.
Create an outline to follow before beginning to write the paper.
Write the paper from your notes rather than from the original source. If you write the paper from the source, be sure to close the source or create a blank screen as you write.
Write the information from the source in your own words as paraphrased material.
Avoid referring to the source as you write or you will certainly use some of the original writer’s words.
Use quotation marks in your notes to indicate anything that is a direct quotation from a source.
Include citations as you are writing instead of going back to fill them in when the paper is finished.
Fill in material from the sources with your own ideas.
Check the source to be sure direct quotations have been copied accurately.
Check the source to be sure page or paragraph numbers are correct.

Correctly Paraphrasing Information

This material can help you become more familiar with correctly paraphrasing information from a source. Use the following guidelines when paraphrasing text:

Read the information from the source, then go to a new page on the computer or close the book as you begin recording the main ideas. (Any time you look back and forth from the source to the page you’re writing on, you risk inadvertently copying from the source.)
Use your own words to record what you believe the author said.
Add a citation. You may want to include a page or paragraph number for the paraphrase if the original work comes from a long text.
Check the source when you’ve finished writing to be sure you have written the content in your own words.
Plagiarism results if any of the following elements are present in your paraphrase:
Synonyms are substituted for some of the original words, but most of the other words remain the same.
Three or four words in a phrase from the source are used without quotation marks.
The citation is missing from your paraphrase. If no citation is used, the material is actually presented to the reader as your own idea.

Centralia College's Plagiarism Policy

The Chapter Four: Student Policies and WAC 132L-350-090 detail what can happen to students who plagiarize or commit other acts of academic dishonesty.

Test Your Skills!

After reviewing the information from the tabs test your skills to see if you know how to avoid plagiarism! Click on the Next button to take the Plagiarism Quiz once you're ready!