This page last updated 02/03/2008
Your class projects will often involve you using journals and the internet as references to describe your subject. We expect that you will rely heavily on your references for your information because we do not expect you to be experts on your topic, and therefore you will require information from outside sources. You have to be certain that you are doing this properly to avoid any problems. The first concern is the risk of plagiarism – the presentation of someone else’s work as your own. This can include copying information from a source without giving any information on where that information came from (which deceptively implies that it is your work), copying information from a classmate, or any other technique that involves someone else’s work. Whatever form it takes, plagiarism is a form of academic misconduct, and will result in referrals to the appropriate authorities, so it is best to avoid any risk of plagiarism. When we refer to someone else’s “work” that refers not only to their research and ideas, but also to how they wrote those ideas down. This is why copying from a classmate is plagiarism, since you are using their information and words. The instructions for project will usually also require that you must not simply quote the information from your sources, but put it into your own words. This is to make sure that you understand the material that you are reading and to prevent cutting and pasting of large sections of text. This leads to a potential problem: how do you go about doing this properly?
The Internet is an amazing resource, making it easy to find information on just about any topic with the click of a mouse, but this ease of use also exposes you to potential problems. Suppose you are asked to write an assignment on prions, the agents that are thought to be the cause of a number of important diseases including mad cow and CJD. You go to the web and find some references describing what prions are, and you find the following paragraph on the website of the CDC (http://www.cdc.gov/od/ohs/biosfty/bmbl4/bmbl4s7d.htm):
Prions are proteinaceous infectious particles that lack nucleic acids.(1) Prions are composed largely, if not entirely, of an abnormal isoform of a normal cellular protein. In mammals, prions are composed of an abnormal, pathogenic isoform of the prion protein (PrP), designated PrPSc. The "Sc" superscript was initially derived from the term scrapie because scrapie is the prototypic prion disease. Since all of the known prion diseases (Table 6) of mammals involve aberrant metabolism of PrP similar to that observed in scrapie, use of the "Sc" superscript is suggested for all abnormal, pathogenic PrP isoforms.(2) In this context, the "Sc" superscript is used to designate the scrapie-like isoform of PrP.
This one paragraph has a lot of information in it, and you want to include some of it in your assignment. What do you have to watch out for?
Problem 1 – Copying without reference: Not only was it easy to find this information, it is also easy to copy information from this web page and paste it directly into your document, saving you a lot of typing and thinking! However, you MUST resist the urge to do this. If you copy and paste a selection from a web page into your text, you are guilty of plagiarism. For example, suppose you put the following text in your own paper:
Prions are proteinaceous infectious particles that lack nucleic acids. Prions are composed largely, if not entirely, of an abnormal isoform of a normal cellular protein.
This text is clearly plagiarized, because you have included it without giving any credit to the author, so you are implying that this knowledge came from your own experience or work. If you put that selection in quotes (for example, according to the CDC web site on prions, “Prions are proteinaceous infectious particles that lack nucleic acids”, you are indicating that you did not write that section yourself, and as such are not committing plagiarism. However, if the instructions for the assignment prohibit using quoted material, you are going to lose points if you do that. You should check with your instructor if you aren’t sure if particular quotations are acceptable. If you are going to avoid quotations, you need to put the information in your own words and provide appropriate references, which leads to potential problem 2.
Problem 2 – Word-for-word plagiarism: Even if you include a reference at the end of a sentence, it may still be plagiarized, depending on how similar the wording of your text is to the original wording provided by the author. Word-for-word plagiarism refers to a situation where a student turns in text that is completely or largely taken from their reference source. Note that it does not mean that every single word in the student’s work must be identical to the original. For example, suppose the student wrote the following definition in his/her paper:
Prions are infectious particles that lack nucleic acids composed of an abnormal form of a normal protein (CDC Website, 2004).
In this case, the student has provided a reference, so it is clear that the material is from the reference. However, the wording of the text is still taken from the original. All the student has done is combine two sentences and remove a few words. Nothing new has been added and no real work has been done by the student. In this case, the student will still be guilty of plagiarism. So it is necessary for you to convert the author’s original writing into your own words, which leads us to the third problem.
Problem 3 – Paraphrasing plagiarism: Since you have a whole paragraph with lots of good information in it, but you don’t want to quote it or use it word-for-word, what can you do? At this point, most people resort to “paraphrasing” where they will change one or two words in the sentence to make it their “own” work. Obviously, this is not acceptable, either. Here’s a paraphrased section of the CDC paragraph:
Prions are protein-based infectious particles without nucleic acids, composed of an abnormal protein (CDC Website, 2004).
Would this be an acceptable sentence to put in your paper? Definitely not. By changing the word “proteinaceous” to “protein-based” you have changed the wording, so it is no longer a direct quote, but you have not added any information of your own, so this is still plagiarism. Obviously, there is something of a fuzzy line between what is “word-for-word” and what is just “paraphrasing” however, both types of writing are plagiarism, so in the end, the penalty you receive will not differ between the two. It is also quite possible to have writing that consists of some sections that use paraphrasing plagiarism, some that are word-for-word, and some that are in your own words – however, the goal is to avoid having any sections that fall into any category of plagiarism. To make the above sentence completely your own and avoid any charge of plagiarism, you would need to re-write it in your OWN words as in the following example:
A prion is an agent of disease made up of nothing but a modified form of a protein that would normally be present in the cell (CDC Website, 2004).
This sentence has the same information, but it is definitely you own work. This isn’t to say that this is the only way that sentence could be reworded – if you read a book and describe it to a friend, you are not going to quote back the entire story, word-for-word. The same idea applies here – you want to get the information correct, but use your own words. Often times, what you’ll do is distill a paragraph (or several sentences from different sources) into a single sentence. The following sentence takes advantage of the whole paragraph to give a more complete definition of what a prion is:
A prion is an abnormal protein that is responsible for a variety of diseases such as scrapie (CDC Website, 2004).
If you were to further include information from this reference or others, you could indicate more information about what sorts of disease they are as well as listing other diseases that are caused by prions. In this case, I’ve taken in an entire paragraph of information and boiled it down to a single sentence that includes all the information that is really important for a class at this level. It leaves out the technical terms like “isoform” which are often not relevant to your point, and is written in a clear style that makes it obvious that the student both read and understood the reference, which is important for these class assignments as well.
For more help on these issues, you should refer to the writing handbook by Victoria McMillan, particularly pages 29-32, which discusses plagiarism and gives guidelines on how to avoid it while working on research papers. This is a vital skill to develop, so it is definitely worth the time to work on this so you do not end up in trouble.
Finally, if you are not sure how to interpret what a reference is saying, ASK your instructor. Print a copy of the section you’re interested in and bring it in during office hours, before class, etc., and ask them to help you with the reference to make sure you are interpreting it properly.
In addition, you should always check with your instructor for specific policies for the course in which you are currently enrolled. In the end, it is up to your instructor to determine what is acceptable for a particular assignment.