Northwestern University, Office of the Provost

How to Avoid Plagiarism

Northwestern's "Principles Regarding Academic Integrity" defines plagiarism as "submitting material that in part or whole
is not entirely one's own work without attributing those same portions to their correct source." Plagiarism can occur in
many forms besides writing: art, music, computer code, mathematics, and scientific work can also be plagiarized. This
document pays special attention to plagiarism in writing, but it is important to understand that unauthorized collaboration
in a math or science assignment is also plagiarism.

In all academic work, and especially when writing papers, we are building upon the insights and words of others. A
conscientious writer always distinguishes clearly between what has been learned from others and what he or she is
personally contributing to the reader's understanding. To avoid plagiarism, it is important to understand how to attribute
words and ideas you use to their proper source.

Guidelines for Proper Attribution

Everyone in the university needs to pay attention to the issue of proper attribution. All of us--faculty and students
together--draw from a vast pool of texts, ideas, and findings that humans have accumulated over thousands of years; we
could not think to any productive end without it. Even the sudden insights that appear at first glance to arrive out of
nowhere come enmeshed in other people's thinking. What we call originality is actually the innovative combining,
amending, or extending of material from that pool.

Hence each of us must learn how to declare intellectual debts. Proper attribution acknowledges those debts responsibly,
usefully, and respectfully. An attribution is responsible when it comes at a location and in a fashion that leaves readers in
no doubt about whom you are thanking for what. It is useful when it enables readers to find your source readily for
themselves. You help them along the way, just as that same source helped you along yours. To make sure that our
attributions are useful, we double-check them whenever we can. Quite literally, it is a habit that pays. Colleagues in every
field appreciate the extra care. Nothing stalls a career faster than sloppy, unreliable work.

Finally, an attribution is respectful when it expresses our appreciation for something done well enough to warrant our
borrowing it. We should take pride in the intellectual company we keep. It speaks well of us that we have chosen to use
the work of intelligent, interesting people, and we can take genuine pleasure in joining our name with theirs.

A Note about Attributions or Citations

The two most commonly used attribution systems—Modern Language Assocation (MLA) and American Psychological
Association (APA)-- consist of two parts: (a) a reference or works cited list at the end of the document, giving precise
information about how to find a source and (b) parenthetical citations immediately following the material you are citing.
Professors and disciplines may vary as to the preferred style for documenting ideas, opinions and facts, but all methods
insist upon absolute clarity as to the source and require that all direct quotations be followed by a citation. The best
solution is to ask which method your instructors prefer. The reference desk of NU's library has manuals available, but
form is not as important as substance.

It is sometimes difficult to judge what needs to be documented. Generally, knowledge which is common to all of us or
ideas which have been in the public domain and are found in a number of sources do not need to be cited. Likewise, facts
that are accepted by most authorities also do not require a citation. Grey areas, however, exist and sometimes it is difficult
to be sure how to proceed. Many people wrongly assume that if they find material on the web, that material is in the public
domain and does not need to be cited. However, the same guidelines apply to all sources you use in your work: electronic
or print, signed or unsigned. If you are in doubt, err on the side of over-documentation.
Northwestern University, cont.

The following passages come from a number of sources, including undergraduate essays. They are all
appropriately documented using Modern Language Association (MLA) style and each represents a different
kind of problem that you will be facing in your own written work.

A. Examples of Materials which Have Been Appropriately Cited

1. Quoted Material and Unusual Opinion or Knowledge

Source: Vivelo, Jackie. “The Mystery of Nancy Drew.” Ms. 3.3 (1992): 76-77. Print.

The teenage detective who was once a symbol of spunky female independence has slowly been replaced by an
image of prolonged childhood, currently evolving toward a Barbie doll detective. . . . Every few pages bring
reminders of Nancy's looks, her clothing, her effect on other people. . . . The first entry in this series carries a
description of Nancy: "The tight jeans looked great on her long, slim legs and the green sweater complemented
her strawberry-blonde hair."

Use and Adaptation of the Material:

Nancy Drew has become a "Barbie doll" version of her old self. She has become superficial and overly
concerned with her looks. She is described in the new series as wearing "tight jeans [that] looked great on her
long, slim legs” (qtd. in Vivelo 77). She has traded her wits and independent spirit for a great body and killer
looks (Vivelo 76-77).

Explanation:
The writer has paraphrased most of the material. She discovered that the paraphrased ideas are unusual (not
found in other sources). Therefore, she placed a citation at the end of the entire passage. In addition, the writer
borrowed a quotation from the Nancy Drew series that she found in the article. The writer has placed quotation
marks around that borrowed material and  placed a “quoted in” citation immediately after the quotation.

2. Interpretation

Source: Lehmberg, Stanford. The Peoples of the British Isles: A New History. Vol. I. New York: Wadsworth,
1992. Print.
Page 9: One recent theory, advanced by the physicist Gerald Hawkins, holds that Stonehenge was actually an
observatory, used to predict the movement of stars as well as eclipses of the sun and moon. Such a structure
would have been of great value to an agricultural people, since it would enable them to mark the changing
seasons accurately, and it would have conferred seemingly supernatural powers on the religious leaders who
knew how to interpret its alignments.

Use and Adaptation of the Material:

If Stonehenge were  an astronomical observatory which could predict the coming of spring, summer, and fall,
this knowledge would have given tremendous power to the priestly leaders of an agricultural community
(Lehmberg 9).

Explanation:
The writer has appropriately cited this material since the writer is in debt to someone else for the analysis, even
though the writer has not used any direct quotations.
Northwestern University, cont.

3. Paraphrased Material

Source:    Osborne, Richard, ed. How to Grow Annuals.  2nd ed. Menlo Park: Lane, 1974. Print.
Page 24: As a recent authority has pointed out, for a dependable long-blooming swatch of soft blue in your
garden, ageratum is a fine choice. From early summer until frost, ageratum is continuously covered with
clustered heads of fine, silky, fringed flowers in dusty shades of lavender-blue, lavender-pink, or white. The
popular dwarf varieties grow in mounds six to twelve inches high and twelve inches across; they make fine
container plants. Larger types grow up to three feet tall. Ageratum makes an excellent edging.

Use and Adaptation of the Material:

You can depend on ageratum if you want some soft blue in your garden. It blooms through the summer and the
flowers, soft, small, and fringed, come in various shades of lavender. The small varieties which grow in mounds
are very popular, especially when planted in containers. There are also larger varieties. Ageratum is good as a
border plant (Osborne 24).

Explanation:
The writer has done a good job of paraphrasing what could be considered common knowledge (available in a
number of sources), but because the structure and progression of detail is someone else's, the writer has
acknowledged the source. This the writer can do at the end of the paragraph since he or she has not used the
author's words.

4. Using Other Authors' Examples

Source: Begley, Sharon. "The Puzzle of Genius." Newsweek 28 June 1993: 46+. Print.
The creative geniuses of art and science work obsessively. . . .  Bach wrote a cantata every week, even when he
was sick or exhausted.

Source: Hotz, Robert. “The Heady Theories on Contours of Einstein's Genius.” Wall Street Journal 2009 May
22, late ed: A9. Print.
Although he published 300 scientific papers, Einstein couldn't easily describe the way his mind worked.

Use and Adaptation of the Material

If there is a single unifying characteristic about geniuses, it is that they produce. Bach wrote a cantata every
week (Begley 50). Einstein drafted over 300 papers (Hotz A9).

Explanation:
Instead of finding original examples, the writer has used other authors’ example to back up what the writer had
to say; therefore, the writer cited the sources where he found the examples.

5. Using Other Authors' Charts and Graphs

Source: Technorati. State of the Blogosphere 2008.  Technorati, 13 October 2009. Web. 20 November 2009
Northwestern University, cont.

Use and Adaptation of the Material:

As blogging has evolved, so has its credibility as a communication medium. In its survey for its 2008 State of
the Blogosphere Report, Technorati asked a statistically valid representative sample of bloggers world wide
about the credibility of the blogging world. The results suggest blogging is becoming more credible as a source
of information (see Figure 1).

Figure 1: Perceptions of Blogs and Traditional Media. Source: Technorati 2008.

Explanation:
Instead of creating an original chart or graph, the writer has used one from an outside source to support what the
writer has to say; therefore the graph has been cited both in the textual introduction and also in the caption. If
the writer had created an original chart, some of the facts might need citations (see example VIII).
Northwestern University, cont.

6. Using Class Notes

Source: McKay, Mary. : “Messages in Modern Music.” Northwestern University.  Evanston, IL.  10 Mar.
2010.  Lecture.
A. Born in USA--Springsteen's 7th, most popular album
a. Recorded with songs on Nebraska album--therefore also about hardship
1. Nebraska about losers and killers
b. About America today--Vietnam, nostalgia, unemployment, deterioration of family
c. Opening song--many people missed the Vietnam message about how badly vets were treated.
class notes--Messages in Modern Music A05
Professor Mary McKay--March 10, 2010

Use and Adaptation of the Material:

As Professor McKay has pointed out, many of the songs in Born in the USA (Springsteen's seventh and most
popular album), including the title song, were recorded with the songs on Nebraska. Consequently, Born in the
USA is also about people who come to realize that life turns out harder and more hurtful than what they might
have expected. However, while Nebraska deals with losers and killers, Born in the USA deals more locally with
the crumbling of American society--its treatment of returning Vietnam veterans, its need to dwell on past
glories, its unemployment and treatment of the unemployed, and the loss of family roots. This is apparent from
the opening song of the album "Born in the USA" in which Springsteen sings from the perspective of a Vietnam
Veteran.

Explanation:
By mentioning Professor McKay’s name in the text itself, the writer has acknowledged that these ideas (which
are not commonly held or the writer has not investigated to find out if they are commonly held) come from a
lecture. In this instance, because there is no page number to cite, no parenthetical citation is necessary. A reader
can go to the entry for McKay in the Works Cited list to find all the necessary specific information about the
source.

7. Debatable Facts

Source: Craig, Gordon A. Europe Since 1815. New York: Dryden, 1974. Print.
Page 370: In the campaigns of 1915, Russian casualties have been conservatively estimated at more than 2
million.

Source: Stavrianos, Leften.S. The World Since 1500. New York: Prentice Hall, 1966. Print.
Page 438: By the end of the summer [of 1915] in addition to military casualties totaling 2,500,000 men, Russia
had lost 15 percent of her territories. . . .

Response to the Material

Estimates of the number of deaths in Russia during 1915 range from over two million (Craig 370)  to two and a
half million (Stavrianos 438).

Explanation:
The writer found different facts in different sources; therefore the "facts" needed to be documented.
Northwestern University, cont.

8. Unusual Facts

Source: Enroth-Cugell, Christina, Lyle F. Mockros, and Robert A. Linsenmeier. “Biomedical Engineering at
Northwestern, 1969-1999.” PDF File. Northwestern University Biomedical Engineering. Northwestern
University, 4 Sept. 2001. Web. 3 August 2010.
The majority of the biomedical engineering faculty from various departments in Tech believed that if the
program at Northwestern was to maintain the worldwide reputation for excellence it had achieved and make
further progress during the ensuing years, then the curriculum had to continue to include quantitative biology
courses on the Evanston Campus. One compelling reason for advocating the reintroduction of such biology
courses on the Evanston campus was that by the early 1970's approximately 40% of first year undergraduates in
the engineering school were enrolling in the Interdisciplinary Biomedical Engineering Program.

Use and Adaptation of the Material:

For decades, biomedical engineering has been one the most popular engineering majors at Northwestern. In fact,
in the 1970’s roughly 40% of incoming engineering undergraduates entered the Interdisciplinary Biomedical
Engineering Program (Enroth-Cugell, Mockros and Linsenmeier, 3)

Explanation:
The writer found this fact in only one source and wants his reader to know where to find it.

B. Examples of Plagiarism

Failure to acknowledge the sources from which we borrow ideas, examples, words and the progression of
thought constitutes plagiarism.

Here are some examples:

1. Direct Plagiarism

Source Material
From: Ekman, Paul, Wallace V. Friesen, and Phoebe Ellsworth.  Emotion in the Human Face: Guidelines for
Research and an Integration of Findings. New York: Pergamon, 1972. Print.

Page 1: The human face in repose and in movement, at the moment of death as in life, in silence and in speech,
when alone and with others, when seen or sensed from within, in actuality or as represented in art or recorded
by the camera is a commanding, complicated, and at times confusing source of information. The face is
commanding because of its very visibility and omnipresence. While sounds and speech are intermittent, the face
even in repose can be informative. And, except by veils or masks, the face cannot be hidden from view. There is
no facial maneuver equivalent to putting one's hands in one's pockets. Further, the face is the location for
sensory inputs, life-necessary intake, and communicative output. The face is the site for the sense receptors of
taste, smell, sight, and hearing, the intake organs for food, water, and air, and the output location for speech. The
face is also commanding because of its role in early development; it is prior to language in the communication
between parent and child.

Misuse of source
(italicized passages indicate direct plagiarism):
Many experts agree that the human face, whether in repose or in movement, is a commanding, complicated, and
sometimes confusing source of information. The face is commanding because it's visible and omnipresent.
Although sounds and speech may be intermittent, the face even in repose may give information. And, except by
veils or masks, the face cannot be hidden. Also, the face is the location for sensory inputs, life-supporting
intake, and communication.
Northwestern University, cont.

Comment
The plagiarized passage is an almost verbatim copy of the original source. The writer has compressed the
author's opinions into fewer sentences by omitting several phrases and sentences. But this compression does not
disguise the writer's reliance on this text for the concepts he passes off as his own. The writer tries to disguise
his indebtedness by beginning with the phrase "Many experts agree that. . . . " This reference to "many experts"
makes it appear that the writer was somehow acknowledging the work of scholars "too numerous to mention."
The plagiarized passage makes several subtle changes in language (e.g., it changes "visibility and
omnipresence" to "it's visible and omnipresent"). The writer has made the language seem more informal in
keeping with his own writing style. He ignores any embellishments or additional information given in the
source-passage. He contents himself with borrowing the sentence about how only masks and veils can hide the
face, without using the follow-up elaboration about there not being a "facial equivalent to putting one's hands in
one's pockets." He also reduces the source's list of the face's diverse activities at the end of the paragraph.

Had the writer enclosed the borrowed material in quotation marks and credited the authors of the Emotions book
with a parenthetical citation, this would have been a legitimate use of a source.

2. The Mosaic

Source Material
From: Fishman, Joshua. Language in Sociocultural Change. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1972. Print.

Page 67: In a relatively open and fluid society there will be few characteristics of lower-class speech that are not
also present (albeit to a lesser extent) in the speech of the working and lower middle classes. Whether we look
to phonological features such as those examined by Labov or to morphological units such as those reported by
Fischer (1958) (Fischer studied the variation between -in' and -ing for the present participle ending, i.e. runnin'
vs. running and found that the former realization was more common when children were talking to each other
than when they were talking to him, more common among boys than girls, and more common among "typical
boys" than among "model boys"), we find not a clear-cut cleavage between the social classes but a difference in
rate of realization of particular variants of particular variables for particular contexts. Even the widely
publicized distinction between the "restricted code" of lower-class speakers and the "elaborate code" of middle-
class speakers (Bernstein 1964, 1966) is of this type, since Bernstein includes the cocktail party and the
religious service among the social situations in which restricted codes are realized. Thus, even in the somewhat
more stratified British setting, the middle class is found to share some of the features of what is considered to be
"typically" lower-class speech. Obviously then, "typicality," if it has any meaning at all in relatively open
societies, must refer largely to repertoire range rather than to unique features of the repertoire.

Misuse of source
(italicized passages indicate direct plagiarism):
In a relatively fluid society many characteristics of lower-class speech will also be found among the working
and lower middle classes. Labov and Fischer's studies show that there is not a clear-cut cleavage between social
classes but only a difference in the frequency of certain speech modes. All classes share certain speech patterns.
The difference among classes would only be apparent by the frequency with which speech expressions or
patterns appeared. By this standard, then, Bernstein's distinction between the "restricted code" of the lower-class
speakers and the "elaborated code" of middle-class speakers is useful only up to a point, since Bernstein
mentions cocktail parties and religious services as examples of "restricted speech" groupings. "Typicality"
refers more to speech "range" than to particular speech features.
Northwestern University, cont.

Comment
While this passage contains relatively few direct borrowings from the original source, all its ideas and opinions
are lifted from it. The writer hides her dependency on the source by translating its academic terms into more
credible language for a novice in sociology. For example, the plagiarist steers clear of sophisticated terms like
"phonological features," "morphological units," and "repertoire range." However, her substitutions are in
themselves clues to her plagiarism, since they over-generalize the source's meaning. The writer seems to
acknowledge secondary sources when she refers to Labov's and Fischer's studies, but she obviously has no first-
hand knowledge of their research. If she had consulted these studies, she should have cited them directly and
included them in the Works Cited list, rather than pretending that both she and her audience would be
completely familiar with them. She intertwines her own opinions with the source and forms a confused,
plagiarized mass.

The writer should have acknowledged her indebtedness to her source by eliminating borrowed phrases and
crediting her paragraph as a paraphrase of the original material. She could also have put quotation marks around
the borrowed phrases and cited them appropriately: “As Fishman explains, phonological studies by Labov and
Fischer show that “there is not a clear-cut cleavage between social classes but only a difference” in the
frequency of certain speech modes (Fishman 67).

3. Paraphrase

Source : The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway. Cliffs Notes, n.d. Web. 4 August 2010.

THE DISCIPLINE OF THE CODE HERO

If the old traditional values are no good anymore, if they will not serve man, what values then will serve man?
Hemingway rejects things of abstract qualities courage, loyalty, honesty, bravery. These are all just words. What
Hemingway would prefer to have are concrete things. For Hemingway a man can be courageous in battle on
Tuesday morning at 10 o'clock. But this does not mean that he will be courageous on Wednesday morning at 9
o'clock. A single act of courage does not mean that a man is by nature courageous. Or a man who has been
courageous in war might not be courageous in some civil affair or in some other human endeavor. What
Hemingway is searching for are absolute values, which will be the same, which will be constant at every
moment of every day and every day of every week.
Ultimately, therefore, for Hemingway the only value that will serve man is an innate faculty of self-discipline.
This is a value that grows out of man's essential being, in his inner nature. If a man has discipline to face one
thing on one day he will still possess that same degree of discipline on another day and in another situation.
Thus Francis Macomber in the short story "The Short, Happy Life of Francis Macomber," has faced a charging
animal, and once he has had the resolution to stand and confront this charging beast, he has developed within
himself a discipline that will serve him in all situations. This control can function in almost any way in a
Hemingway work.

Misuse of source:
Hemingway tries to discover the values in life that will best serve man. Since Hemingway has rejected
traditional values, he himself establishes a kind of "code" for his heroes. This code is better seen than spoken of.
The Hemingway hero doesn't speak of abstract qualities like courage and honesty. He lives them. But this living
of values entails continual performance the Hemingway hero is always having his values put to the test.

How can the hero be up to this continual test? Hemingway stresses the faculty of self-discipline as the backbone
of all other virtues. Self-discipline places man's good qualities on a continuum. The dramatic change in Francis
Macomber in "The Short, Happy Life of Francis Macomber" stems more from his new-found self-control than
from any accidental combination of traits.
Northwestern University, cont.

Comment
This illustrates plagiarism since the writer used the notion of the "Hemingway code hero" presented in Cliffs
Notes as the sole basis for his own essay. He has absorbed his source's concepts, re-phrased them, and, perhaps,
made them simpler. But there is a one-to-one relationship between the development of ideas in the Cliffs Notes
and the plagiarist’s rendition.

The first two sentences of the plagiarist's are directly borrowed from his source; the remaining sentences are
more artfully disguised. The worst feature of this idea-copying is that it seems to be the end product of a close
reading of Hemingway's "Short, Happy Life," the writer makes it appear that his comments are based on this
short story.

The writing here would be acceptable if he had written the same paraphrase with the proper acknowledgement
of his source.

4. Insufficient Acknowledgement

Source: Laven, Peter. Renaissance Italy: 1464-1534. New York: Capricorn, 1964. Print.

The tenacious particularism of the Italian state gave rise to a wide variety of constitutional solutions and class
structures throughout Italy. Even conquered territories and those swallowed up by bigger neighboring powers
often managed to retain much of their internal organization as it had been. If power changed hands, the
instruments and forms of power usually remained the same. Since the economic needs of such territories did not
suddenly alter with a change of government or master, those classes which had been important before the
change tended to continue to be important afterwards as well. Only when the nature of the change was economic
and social might there have been a reversal in the relationships of classes; but even in this there was no sudden
revolution in the structure of classes.

Misuse of source:
In his comprehensive study, Renaissance Italy, Peter Laven discusses the peculiar organization of Renaissance
city-states: “The tenacious particularism of the Italian states gave rise to a wide variety of constitutional
solutions and class structures throughout Italy. Even conquered territories and those swallowed up by bigger
neighboring powers often managed to retain much of their internal organization as it had been”(130). This
means that if power changed hands, the instruments and forms of power usually remained the same. Since the
economic needs of such territories did not suddenly alter with a change of government or master, those classes
which had been important before the change tended to continue to be important afterwards as well. Only when
the nature of the change was economic and social might there have been a reversal in the relationships of
classes; but even in this there was no sudden revolution in the structure of classes.

Comment
This half-crediting of a source is a common form of plagiarism. It stems either from a desire to credit one's
source and copy it too, or from ignorance as to where to footnote. The general rule is to footnote after rather
than before your resource material. In this case, the plagiarist credits historian Peter Laven with two quoted
sentences and then continues using the author without giving acknowledgement. The writer disguises the direct
plagiarism as a paraphrase by using the falsely-explanatory phrase "This means that ..." in the third sentence.
This example of plagiarism is especially reprehensible because the writer seemingly acknowledges his source--
but not enough.

_____________________
This guide was prepared with contributions from many people, including members of the Undergraduate
Council. Mark Sheldon, Assistant Dean for Academic Integrity in WCAS, assisted with the organization of the
Northwestern University, cont.

document and worked with Barbara Shwom of the WCAS Writing Program to update the material. The section
on attribution was written by Jean Smith of the WCAS Writing Program, with help from Bob Wiebe of the
History Department. Contributors include Katrina Cucueco (Speech '96), Ryan Garino (CAS '98), Scott
Goldstein (Tech '96), and Jean Smith and Ellen Wright of the Writing Program. The examples of plagiarism and
comments are based upon Sources: Their Use and Acknowledgement (published by Dartmouth College).

For more on plagiarism, see Charles Lipson, Doing Honest Work in College. How to Prepare Citations, Avoid
Plagiarism, and achieve Real Academic Success (Univ. of Chicago Press, 2004).
 Georgetown University`s Discussion of Plagiarism
1. They Said It So Much Better. Shouldn't I Use Their Words?
Yeah, and Michael Jordan can hit a fadeaway jump shot better than you can, and Miles Davis could play a better
blues than you do on the trumpet. Learning to write is learning to think. Sure you won't have a lot of original
thoughts, very few of us do. But you will have your original way of looking at things, which is a combination of
everything you have done to this point in your life. As you read others' works and ponder, argue with, distill,
reconcile yourself to, or reject them, you are growing intellectually, just as you would grow physically by lifting
weights or playing the piano.

I thought I can use someone's words if I reference or cite the source.

You can, and this happens all the time in academia. It is necessary for building upon the works of others. The
trouble comes when you start to use someone else's words all throughout your paper. Pretty soon your paper
looks like nothing but a field of quotation marks with a few country roads in between (your few sentences)
connecting them. This does not represent very much intellectual work on your part. You have assembled a paper
rather than writing one.

Some people set out to deliberately plagiarize, but I am not talking about them. I am talking about how you will
get yourself into trouble by adopting the vocabulary words and phrases of an author, using them throughout
your paper, and not thinking that you have to put quotation marks around each phrase or key word.

2. What is a Paraphrase, Anyway?

Paraphrase is stating someone else's ideas in your own words. If you think about it a little, you will realize that
it's something that we all do, all the time. You watch the NBA finals on TV, you tell me the story of how
Malone fell short and Jordan was a hero again, and I retell the story to my friend in my own way. I probably
don't stop to give you credit. If we were constantly stopping to give credit, then our discourse would bog down.
However, since we are having a conversation, if you need to know more, you can ask me: What's the source of
that stuff, man? And I can say: it was Jimmy, he watched the game so he should know. And you say: Jimmy is
an idiot, and I say... well, so it goes.

So why do you have to cite the source of something when you are writing. Doesn't this also bog down the
discourse? Yeah, in some of the papers you read it seems like there are more footnotes than the paper text itself.
But yes, you do have to cite sources, even for paraphrase. You see when your friend reads your paper, you're not
around. He can't call you and ask you for the source. You may not remember unless you put in the citation
anyway (then you have really left yourself vulnerable if a professor does know the source, as he or she probably
will).

So when you are writing the paper, think about the reader and what questions he or she would ask. If you can
imagine the reader saying: "what was the source of that idea?" then you should cite it, even if you rewrote it in
your own words.

3. My Friends Get Stuff From the Internet

So do you, so do I, so does everybody. According to the April 3rd, 1998 issue of Science, there are now as many
as 350,000,000 pages on Internet, and with plans in existence for putting everything in libraries in digital form,
the accessibility of virtually any text will become a reality in the not-too-distant future. This means that the
temptation to start with someone else's words in a word processor and massage them into a paper will become
greater and greater. It's the same kind of problem I was demonstrating in the section about They Said It So
Georgetown University, cont.

Much Better, only it's much easier now.

(By the way, what do you think about how I cited the Science article above? Was it adequate? Would I get a
charge of plagiarism?)

The practical consequence of all this information in electronic form is that you will be tempted. You'll find out
there are sites where you can download whole papers, and you'll be able to find articles about many topics
within a moment's notice. Of course your professors have access to these same tools with the same lightening
quick speeds (perhaps even faster with their on-campus Internet access). But that's not the point. You're not in
college to play a cat and mouse game with your professor to see if you can fool him or her by using someone
else's work. You are in college to hone your mind into a reliable thinking machine that will serve you well
throughout the rest of your life. This is the number one skill you are here to obtain: thinking. Why do you think
the system of education has changed so little over the past few thousand years? Just as great teachers such as
Jesus, Confucius or Mohammed sat with their disciples, so you sit with your professors. You present your
thoughts to one who has had greater experience thinking than you have, and this one coaches you little by little
to become a better thinker yourself. Presenting someone else's work turns this relationship into a fraud, and
cheats you out of the very thing you are in college to get. What you would be getting away with, if you are not
caught, is wasting your money.

So how can you use stuff that's already in electronic form? Various professors have widely divergent opinions
about this subject. Here's my own personal opinion: It may be more useful to print it out before you start writing
and use it like you would a book. At least then cutting and pasting is not so convenient. Always write your
papers from scratch, starting with a blank screen. Don't cut and paste from various documents. If you do cut and
paste a little, make sure each passage is properly cited. Do the citation work at the time of writing instead of
leaving it for the end. Be realistic about what you are doing. If you are doing a lot of cutting and pasting,
chances are you are not writing a very good paper.

4. I Don't Have Time to Do It Right

Who does? In the olden days a scholar might take 20 years to write his or her treatise. But that's when the total
number of books in the world could fit inside the Titanic. Now you have three papers to write by Friday, a Hoya
soccer game to attend on Wednesday, and ballroom dance lessons Thursday which you are not going to miss
because Mr./Ms. Right will be there!

If you choose to spend your time so as to leave too little for writing, then I have little advice to give you. You
should accept the possibility that you will get a lower grade rather than risking plagiarism and a life-changing
sanction such as Notation of Academic Dishonesty on your permanent transcript. If you are unable to get the
papers done, you can always try the age-old remedy of asking for an extension. Many professors will be
sympathetic, and believe me, if it comes to a choice between plagiarizing, turning in really poor work, or
humbling yourself a little to explain to your professor what is happening, the third course is the best. Perhaps he
or she will tell you that no extension will be given, and perhaps you will get a lower grade on that assignment.
But that's still not as bad as a sanction.

A lot of professors really want you to succeed and may be willing to give you a break. You see, they want the
same thing that you do: to see you become an excellent thinker. When you don't turn in your own work or work
that represents good effort on your part, you rob the professor of the chance to do what he or she does for a
living. Is it any wonder that professors get angry when students don't turn their work in on time or present
hastily constructed, sloppy work?
So if you don't have time to do it right, shouldn't you be asking yourself the question: what are you doing in
college anyway?
Georgetown University, cont.

5. A Citation is Not a Traffic Ticket

Before we even get to the idea of citation, let's make sure one thing is clear: if you are using a word-for-word,
literal quotation, you have to put the passage you are quoting in quotation marks. If it is a long passage--more
than three lines of text in your paper--you should start a new line and indent, putting the citation at the end of
the paragraph. Only these two mechanisms are acceptable for indicating quoted material.

Believe it or not, if you leave out the quotation marks, you can be brought to an honor board. One of my
students recently transferred a paper from Microsoft Works to WordPerfect. Somehow when he did this, all the
quotation marks were stripped from the paper. I hesitate to think what might have happened had he turned in the
paper without proofreading it. (Probably he could have shown the professor the earlier draft with the quotation
marks and have explained what happened, but it still could have been a major hassle. Unfortunately the
interpretation that he was deliberately trying to pass off someone else's work as his own would have had to have
been considered.)

But I digress. There are several systems for citing, or giving reference to, the ideas of others. Some professors
want you to use a specific system. Others don't care which you use, as long as you are consistent. All professors
want you to present complete information. For example, if you are citing the Heilbroner passage, you should
give the author's name, the name of the book, the publisher, the date and place of publication, and the page
number of the quotation. The whole reference allows the reader to track it down and see what it says for him or
herself. It's part of the scientific paradigm that is prevalent in Western societies, which says that convincing
evidence about the truth of a hypothesis can be built up only by amassing several independent direct or indirect
confirmations of the hypothesis. If I can track down the source, I can see for myself whether I think it is valid.
Our reference librarians have put links to citation guides on the web for many types of documents, and for
government documents.

Citing books and magazines isn't too hard, but what about stuff like web pages? I try to reference the TITLE of
the page, at the top of the document (or perhaps at the topic of your browser window, the URL of the page (its
location on the web), the AUTHOR of the page if you can find one (or an organization if it appears that an
organization wrote the page), the TITLE and DATE of the broader work if you can discern it, and the date on
which you visited the web page. For example, if today is Oct. 1, 1998, you might cite this page as:

Georgetown University Honor Council (1999). What Is Plagiarism? [Online] Georgetown University Honor
Council Web Site. URL: http://www.georgetown.edu/honor/plagiarism.html [July. 1, 1999].

There are several problems associated with citing web pages.

* Finding out the proper address to record

If frames are being used, the actual web page address is hidden. In this case you can look at the page properties
in Netscape or Internet Explorer to find out the true address. Merely citing the top-level frame address is like
citing a whole shelf in the library. It doesn't give the reader enough information to find the page again. Try to
think: what will I need to find the address again. I have seen cases where students have copied entire paragraphs
from an Internet source and listed the generic top-level web domain (such as http://www.cnbc.com) as the
reference. This is far from sufficient for tracking the paper down and could lead to a charge of plagiarism.

* Finding out the author of the page

This may be quite difficult, and you may have to look above or below the page itself in order to find out who it
is.
Georgetown University, cont.

* Finding the page again at all

The web page may disappear tomorrow. If you have not recorded the citation information immediately, waiting
until the last minute, you may not be able to find it, ever again. This is a big problem because now you have
written the paper, you know at some level you have committed plagiarism, yet you don't want to rewrite the
paper. You have painted yourself into a corner. It may be a good idea to download important pages to your
computer, keeping them in a folder associated with the paper, or doing printouts of certain pages and keeping
them. I use a system for research where I use the URL as part of the file name, so I know exactly where the
information came from.

There are several guidelines and style sheets that have been written for citing these new sources, and you should
surely consult them. There are some listed on our library's pages. The main idea is that you are giving the
necessary information so the reader can track it down himself and read the entire original document. The reader
therefore will not have to take your word for it, but can evaluate how you understood and used the evidence that
you have presented. Be sure to consult your professor about what is the acceptable citation style.

6. What If My Roommate Helped Me?

Defining the limits of acceptable collaboration is always difficult. Sometimes professors give vague
instructions, and sometimes it gets confusing when you have different standards from different professors in
different classes. That's why you should never make any assumptions about whether you are allowed to
collaborate. You should always assume that the answer is no, and then carefully read the assignment and
syllabus, listen to what the professor says, and ask if you are unclear. Under this year's Honor Council
document, it is your responsibility to know what is acceptable collaboration.

Knowing the limits is one half of the equation. The other half is giving proper credit. If you spent long hours
discussing the themes from your paper on Andy Warhol with your roommate, who happened to have lived in
Greenwich Village and knew people who knew him, then just cite your roommate as a source in a footnote.
Then there is no doubt that you are giving proper credit for help received.

And make sure you are clear with your roommates about the kind of help you are giving them. I have seen a
number of cases where a student will allow another student to read his draft or final version of paper so that the
second student can get some ideas about how to get started. Sometimes the second student copies the paper
verbatim; sometimes he or she uses material from it that constitutes plagiarism. Some professors will tell you
that reading each other's papers is an excellent learning device, while others will say you should not do this
under any circumstances. So, the bottom line again is know the limits, act within them, and give proper credit.

7. In My Country/High School, Using Someone Else's Work is a Sign

of Respect
I have heard this argument a number of times since starting to hear honor cases in the last few years. The simple
and direct answer is the old adage "When in Rome, do as the Romans do." (Thankfully I don't have to dredge up
a source for this saying, as stuff that is in common use does not have to be cited.) If you had teachers who told
you to assemble papers without listing sources, they did you a grave disservice. Perhaps they thought that this
was a good stepping stone to writing, that giving you a place to start with someone else's text would eventually
lead to writing on your own (sort of like using training wheels on a bike). I have no problem with this technique
as long as all the sources are being cited. I doubt that paper you write will have the polish or insights that come
from figuring out how to say it yourself.
If you came from a country where the definitions of plagiarism are different, then you have some catching up to
Georgetown University, cont.

do here. Knowing how and when to cite is your responsibility. However, any professor will be happy to help
you do it. Almost all of us wrote Ph.D. dissertations that were full of footnotes, references, and bibliographies.
All the academic works we are now writing have them. So let's hope we know what we are doing, although I
have to admit there have been egregious cases of plagiarism even among faculty members (not at Georgetown,
of course!). If you are in doubt, ask. If you need more help, ask the professor if he or she has any objection to
your getting help at The Writing Center, and take advantage of it.

There are some professors on this campus who will tell you that plagiarism is a chimaera. There are no original
ideas left anyway, and all we are doing is manipulating sets of symbols. (I have probably grossly misrepresented
their positions.) Such philosophical positions notwithstanding, plagiarism is a reality if you don't cite the
sources. It's that simple.

8. I Really Didn't Do It!

Did you know that you are responsible for not plagiarizing even if you don't know what it is? Under this Honor
System, it is your responsibility to know. Even if you didn't mean to do it, if you did, and you get caught, it
doesn't matter that you didn't know.

Having said that, what if you are sure you didn't plagiarize and the professor says you did. The professor says
you must have bought the paper on the Internet because it was so much better than the other stuff you wrote. If
you can show him or her your drafts, the notes you took, and any other materials you used in writing the paper,
then you probably will be able to show that it was your own work. If you have nothing, it's going to be harder to
prove. Still, if you can talk convincingly about the material in the paper, including things you decided to leave
out, why you made the argument the way you did, how the writings you cited fit into the paper, where you
found those writings, etc.--you should be able to convince either the professor or the investigating officer that it
was your own work. So keep your notes and learn the material well. Visit the professor's office during the
course of working on the assignment to discuss your argument. Engage in an email discussion with him or her.
Keep the emails and you'll have more evidence that you did write it. Note that it order to do this, you need to get
started earlier. You won't have much time to engage your professor in conversation if you are working on the
paper at 3 am the night before it is due.

9. What About Copyright?

You may be aware that US Copyright law protects works for a certain period of time (let's say 100 years for the
sake of argument). After this, the works are in the public domain. This means that anyone can publish them
without paying royalties. But they still have to acknowledge the source. And whether you are using Plato,
Josephus, Machiavelli, Michelangelo, Emerson, Chesterton, T.S. Eliot or e.e. cummings, you must cite your
sources. If you cite a long passage in your paper, and the work is still under copyright, you will need to get the
permission of the copyright holder to do it. The law is complicated here, because if you can show that your use
is "fair," you may not need permission.

But let me ask you this question: what are you doing citing a long passage in the first place? It will take up so
much space in your paper that there will be very little room left for you own thoughts. I have seen more than
one case where students have turned in papers that were largely (and I mean almost word-for-word largely)
other people's work. If the student had put quotation marks around each passage, it would have been painfully
obvious that the amount of material added by the student was practically nil. So with the quotation marks and
the citations, technically it's not plagiarism. But if the substance of the paper is completely missing, it should get
an F from the Professor. That's still preferable to an Honor Council sanction, but is it what you came to college
for?
Georgetown University, cont.

10. Examples of Plagiarism

(The format of the following examples was drawn from Acknowledging The Work of Others illustrating several
types of common plagiarism. The passages in boldface reflect plagiarism of the original passage followed in
italics by an explanation why they constitute plagiarism.)

THE ORIGINAL PASSAGE

This book has been written against a background of both reckless optimism and reckless despair. It holds that
Progress and Doom are two sides of the same medal; that both are articles of superstition, not of faith. It was
written out of the conviction that it should be possible to discover the hidden mechanics by which all traditional
elements of our political and spiritual world were dissolved into a conglomeration where everything seems to
have lost specific value, and has become unrecognizable for human comprehension, unusable for human
purpose. Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., 1973
ed.), p.vii, Preface to the First Edition.

EXAMPLE I

word-for-word plagiarism

This book has been written against a background of both reckless optimism and reckless despair. It holds that
Progress and Doom are two sides of the same medal; that both are articles of superstition, not of faith.
Interestingly enough, Arendt avoids much of the debates found in some of the less philosophical literature about
totalitarianism.

When material is taken directly from a book, article, speech, statement, remarks, the Internet, or some other
source, the writer must provide proper attribution. In this example, no credit is given to the author.

EXAMPLE II

the footnote without quotation marks

This book has been written against a background of both reckless optimism and reckless despair. It holds that
Progress and Doom are two sides of the same medal; that both are articles of superstition, not of faith.1
Interestingly enough, Arendt avoids much of the debates found in some of the less philosophical literature about
totalitarianism. 1 Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc.,
1973 ed.), p.vii, Preface to the First Edition.

When material is quoted word-for-word, a footnote alone is insufficient. The material that represents a direct
quotation must either be put within quotation marks or indented. For example:

A. As Hannah Arendt explains, her book was “written against a backdrop of both reckless optimism and
reckless despair.”1 The book “holds that Progress and Doom are two sides of the same medal . . . .”2

B. As Dr. Arendt has explained:

This book has been written against a background of both reckless optimism and reckless despair. It holds that
Progress and Doom are two sides of the same medal; that both are articles of superstition, not of faith.1
Interestingly enough, Arendt avoids much of the debate found in some of the less philosophical literature about
totalitarianism.
Georgetown University, cont.

EXAMPLE III

the paraphrase

Hannah Arendt’s book, The Origins of Totalitarianism, was written in the light of both excessive hope and
excessive pessimism. Her thesis is that both Advancement and Ruin are merely different sides of the same coin.
Her book was produced out of a belief that one can understand the method in which the more conventional
aspects of politics and philosophy were mixed together so that they lose their distinctiveness and become
worthless for human uses.

Even if the author’s exact language is not used, a footnote is required for material that is paraphrased.

EXAMPLE IV

the mosaic

The first edition of The Origins of Totalitarianism was written in 1950. Soon after the Second World War, this
was a time of both reckless optimism and reckless despair. During this time, Dr. Arendt argues, the traditional
elements of the political and spiritual world were dissolved into a conglomeration where everything seems to
have lost specific value. In particular, the separation between the State and Society seems to have been
destroyed. In this book, she seeks to disclose the hidden mechanics by which this transformation occurred.

Even though this example includes some original material, selected phrases of the original are woven
throughout the passage - a. reckless optimism and reckless despair, b. traditional elements of the {our in
original} political and spiritual world were dissolved into a conglomeration where everything seems to have lost
specific value, and c. hidden mechanics.

EXAMPLE V

the “apt phrase”

Following the Second World War, scholars from a variety of disciplines began to explore the nature of
“totalitarianism.” One of the most pressing issues for these writers was understanding the “essence” of
totalitarianism. How, for example, is a totalitarian regime different from an authoritarian regime? Although
authors disagree on the precise answer to this question, a common thread running throughout most of the classic
works on totalitarianism deals with the relationship between State and Society. In a totalitarian state, the
traditional boundaries between State and society are dissolved into a conglomeration so that the two become
indistinguishable.

This passage is almost entirely original, but the phrase “dissolved into a conglomeration” is taken directly from
Arendt. Even though this is a short phrase, it must be footnoted. Only phrases that have truly become part of
general usage can be used without citation.

11. Acknowledging Work of Others

(The pamphlet Acknowledging the Work of Others was prepared by the Office of the Dean of Faculty, Cornell
University, August 1993. Passages have been quoted with permission granted to Georgetown University.)

Education at its best, whether conducted in seminar, laboratory, or lecture hall, is a dialogue between teacher
and pupil in which questions and answers can be sought and evaluated. If this dialogue is to flourish, students
who enter the University must assume certain responsibilities. Among them is the responsibility to make clear
Georgetown University, cont.

what knowledge is theirs and what is someone else’s. Teachers must know whose words they are reading or
listening to, for no useful dialogue can occur between a teacher and an echo or ghost.

Students who submit written work in the University must, therefore, be the authors of their own papers.
Students who use facts or ideas originating with others must plainly distinguish what is theirs from what is not.
To misrepresent one’s work ignorantly is to show oneself unprepared to assume the responsibility presupposed
by work on the college level. It should be obvious that none of this prohibits making use of the discoveries or
ideas of others. What is prohibited is simply improper, unacknowledged use (commonly known as
“plagiarism”). . . .

To acknowledge the work of others, observe the following conventions:

1. If you adopt someone else’s language, provide quotation marks and a reference to the source, either in the
text or in a footnote, as prescribed by such publications as Format, The MLA Style Sheet, or the manual of style
recommended by the course instructor.

Footnote form varies from discipline to discipline. In some fields, writers group references to a number of
sources under a single footnote number, which appears at the end of a sentence or even of a paragraph. In other
fields, writers use a separate footnote for each reference, even if this means creating two or three footnotes for a
single sentence. It seems pointless, even counterproductive, to make the mechanics of footnoting unnecessarily
complicated. If in a short, informal paper you cite a passage from a work all the members of your class are
reading in the same edition, it may be entirely sufficient simply to cite page numbers (and if necessary the title
of the text) parenthetically within your own sentences: “Hobbes suggests that life outside civil society is likely
to be ‘solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short’ (Leviathan, p.53).” To ascertain what form to follow in these
matters, ask your instructor.

2. If you adopt someone else’s ideas but you cannot place them between quotation marks because they are not
reproduced verbatim, then not only provide a footnoted reference to the source but also insert in the text a
phrase like one of the following: “I agree with Blank,” “as Blank has argued,” “according to some critics”; or
embody in the footnote a statement of indebtedness, like one of these: “This explanation is a close paraphrase of
Blank (pp. ),” “I have used the examples discussed by Blank,” “The main steps in my discussion were suggested
by Blank’s treatment of the problem,” “Although the examples are my own, my categories are derived from
Blank.” A simple footnote does no more than identify the source from which the writer has derived material. A
footnote alone does not indicate whether the language, the arrangement of fact, the sequence of the argument, or
the choice of examples is taken from the source. To indicate indebtedness to a source for such features as these,
the writer must use quotation marks or provide an explanation in his or her text or in the footnote.

3. If some section of the paper is the product of a discussion, or if the line of argument adopted is such a
product, and if acknowledgment within the text or footnote seems inappropriate, then furnish in a prefatory note
or footnote an appropriate acknowledgment of the exact nature of the assistance you have received. Scholarship
is, after all, cumulative, and prefatory acknowledgments of assistance are common. For example: “I, . . . , wish
to express my appreciation to Dr. Harlow Shapley of the Harvard Observatory, who read the original manuscript
and made valuable suggestions and criticisms, with particular reference to the sections dealing with astronomy”
(Lincoln Barnett, The Universe and Dr. Einstein [New York: the New American Library, 1958]).

A similar form of acknowledgment is appropriate when students confer about papers they are writing. It is often
fruitful for students to assist each other with drafts of papers, and many instructors encourage such collaboration
in class and out. All students need to do to avoid misunderstandings is to acknowledge such help explicitly, in a
footnote.