When using sources in your papers, you can avoid plagiarism by knowing what must be documented. If you use an author's specific word or words, you must place those words within quotation marks and you must credit the source. Even if you use your own words, if you obtained the information or ideas you are presenting from a source, you must document the source. information: if a piece of information isn't common knowledge see below , you need to provide a source. ideas: an author's ideas may include not only points made and conclusions drawn, but, for instance, a specific method or theory, the arrangement of material, or a list of steps in a process or characteristics of a medical condition. You do not need to cite a source for material considered common knowledge: general common knowledge is factual information considered to be in the public domain, such as birth and death dates of well known figures, and generally accepted dates of military, political, literary, and other historical events. In general, factual information contained in multiple standard reference works can usually be considered to be in the public domain.

field specific common knowledge is common only within a particular field or specialty. It may include facts, theories, or methods that are familiar to readers within that discipline. For instance, you may not need to cite a reference to piaget's developmental stages in a paper for an education class or give a source for your description of a commonly used method in a biology report mdash but you must be sure that this information is so widely known within that field that it will be shared by your readers.

and in the case of both general and field specific common knowledge, if you use the exact words of the reference source, you must use quotation marks and credit the source. every writer using sources in an essay needs to understand plagiarism. On the whole, readers assume that all of the language and ideas of an essay belong to the writer, unless the wording is in quotation marks or the paraphrase is cited. If the writer uses words or ideas from another source without those proper signals, the reader may give the writer credit for language and ideas which actually belong to another source. The reader should always understand where the writer's ideas and language end and the ideas and language of a source begin, and it is the writer's responsibility to make that division clear. what is plagiarism? this is the definition of plagiarism from the ivcc student handbook: plagiarism might involve copying word for word or paraphrasing the burden of proof is on the student. how plagiarism might appear in an essay the writer might have: used another source’s words or ideas without giving acknowledgement that those ideas or words are not his or her own.

Taken words directly from a source without using proper quotation marks this is plagiarism even if the passage is cited. Taken some words or sentence structure of a source and replaced them with similar words. Used the organization, idea progression, or other any other feature of a source this is plagiarism even if the wording is paraphrased. how plagiarism can be unintentional intentional plagiarism is easy to imagine. If a writer purposefully takes the ideas or wording from another source and presents them as his or her own, that is a clear case of intentional plagiarism, in other words, cheating.

Plagiarism may occur because the writer did not know that citations were necessary or did not know how to cite the source intended to paraphrase, but did not do so properly planned to go back and cite the sources used, but missed some instances of source usage. There are many other possible examples, but the overall message is that the writer must take responsibility for using sources properly. Any of the above situations could result in plagiarism, and the work would be penalized regardless of whether it was intentional. what is general knowledge? general knowledge or common knowledge is information that is commonly known in its field, so it appears in many sources. It might also include information that is so basic and factual that most, if not all, sources would agree with it.

Some examples of general knowledge: kurt vonnegut published slaughterhouse five in 1966. Each of these statements is subjective, and if the writer of a research paper got the idea from a source, it would need to be cited. what is the penalty for plagiarism? this is the statement from the ivcc student handbook about the penalties for plagiarism: the faculty member has full authority to identify academic dishonesty in his/her classroom, and to impose any of the following sanctions: failure of any assignment, quiz, test, examination or paper, project or oral presentation for the work in which the violation occurred. how to avoid plagiarism if you are choosing to quote from a source, quote exactly, use quotation marks, and cite.

If you are choosing to paraphrase, do so thoroughly, do not use quotation marks, and cite. Do not plan to go back and cite your sources later. if the writer misses one citation, the essay will have a plagiarism problem. As you revise and edit your essay, double check your quotations for accuracy and your paraphrases for thoroughness. Keep a hard copy printout or photocopy of all of your sources and the necessary citation information so that it is available at any point in your writing process.