What is plagiarism? What do you need to know about it?
Plagiarism is when you do not give credit to others for their words or ideas that you use in an assignment. There are two main types of plagiarism:
Plagiarism is a very serious charge in college, and the rules and consequences of academic dishonesty at Santa Fe College are in the Student Conduct Code. It is very important that you keep track of the sources you use in your research and give credit for them, both in the body of your paper (using in-text citations or footnotes, depending on your citation style) and at the end in a full list of citations.
Citing your sources serves several purposes:
A citation style is a specific way to document the sources you use in your paper. There are three main citation styles used at Santa Fe College: MLA, APA, and Chicago. There are slight differences between all three, but the basic concepts remain the same. You will have one list at the end of your paper that includes all the sources you used, formatted according to the citation style rules. You will also include shortcut citations in your paper whenever you refer to words or ideas you took from other sources. These shortcut citations usually take the form of in-text citations or footnotes, depending on the citation style.
Download a PDF with all the steps for citing words/quotes
I am using the highlighted quote from page one of a journal article.
Click the arrows to see the next steps.
Place quotation marks around the quote. You need to include the quote exactly as it is written in your source. If you remove words in the sentence, use [...] to show that there has been an edit.
It's usually best to introduce the quote with context and the authors' names. The abbreviation et al. is used when there are three or more authors; list the first author's last name and then et al.
If you are citing in APA, include the date in parentheses after the author's name and the page number (if you have it) in parentheses at the end of the sentence. The abbreviation p. is for page. Use pp. if the quote spans two or more pages: (pp. 1-2). The period of the sentence goes after the parentheses.
Click the right arrow for MLA.
List the full citation at the end of your paper under the heading References. Even though you may have multiple in-text citations for a source, you only need it listed once in your References list. Format each reference with a hanging indent and alphabetize by the first word of the reference.
For MLA, include the page number (if you have it) in parentheses at the end of the sentence. The period of the sentence goes after the parentheses.
List the full citation at the end of your paper under the heading Works Cited. Even though you may have multiple in-text citations for a source, you only need it listed once in your Works Cited list. Format each citation with a hanging indent and alphabetize by the first word of the citation.
As you incorporate quotes into your writing, it's usually best to introduce the quote by using a signal phrase. Here are a few signal phrases and signal phrase verbs that might be useful:
Here are three examples of different signal phrases used to introduce the same quote:
These examples conform with the MLA in-text citation style; for APA or Chicago, please consult those guides.
Download a PDF with all the steps for citing ideas
Locate the information you want to use from a source. This could be a sentence, a paragraph, or an overall summary of a source.
Click the arrows to see the next steps.
Next, rewrite this to fit your own writing style, using your own words. One tip is to read the information several times, then look away and try to write it out. Remember, though, that while these words are yours, the ideas are not. Don't forget the next steps for properly citing these ideas!
If you are citing in APA, you need to include the author's last name and the date in your in-text citation. The abbreviation et al. is used when there are three or more authors; list the first author's last name and then et al.
This example shows two ways of incorporating this information. The first sentence includes the names and date as part of the narrative and the second sentence has both at the end of the sentence in parentheses.
Click the right arrow for MLA
In APA, list the full citation at the end of your paper under the heading References. Even though you may have multiple in-text citations for a source, you only need it listed once in your References list. Format each reference with a hanging indent and alphabetize by the first word of the reference.
If you are citing in MLA, you need to include the author's last name in your in-text citation. The abbreviation et al. is used when there are three or more authors; list the first author's last name and then et al.
This example shows two ways of incorporating this information. The first sentence includes the names as part of the narrative and the second sentence has the names at the end of the sentence in parentheses.
In MLA, list the full citation at the end of your paper under the heading Works Cited. Even though you may have multiple in-text citations for a source, you only need it listed once in your Works Cited list. Format each citation with a hanging indent and alphabetize by the first word of the citation.
As you progress in your academic writing, you will want to directly quote less and paraphrase (put into your own words) more. This shows that you are able to understand and synthesize the ideas that you have read. Again, even though you are putting these ideas and thoughts into your own words, you will still need to include an in-text citation and full citation to credit the source.
The MLA Handbook has a guide on how to quote and paraphrase in MLA. While it's specific to MLA in-text citations, the general concepts will apply to all writing, regardless of citation style.
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