Citing Sources

Why Cite?

• If sources are not properly cited, plagiarism will occur.

What is Plagiarism?• Plagiarism:

– To steal and pass off (ideas or words of another) as one’s own

– To use (another’s production) without crediting the source

– To commit literary theft– To present as new and original an

idea or product derived from an existing source

What is Considered Plagiarism?

– Plagiarism can occur deliberately or accidentally.

Some examples of deliberate plagiarism:– hand in an assignment written by someone

else – copy part of another student's paper or use the

ideas of that student and pass it off as your own

– pay someone to write your paper – hand in downloaded texts, or copy and paste

directly from the Internet – deliberately use another writer's ideas,

creations, images etc without identifying where they came from.

Accidental Plagiarism• Accidental plagiarism is the

unwitting, unknowing form of cheating and can include:– you forget to identify where you found the

information – you do not pay attention to where your

material(s) came from when paraphrasing (put other writers' ideas into your own words)

– you use the exact words of another person without quotation marks even though you've said where the information came from

– you don't record where the information came from when you take notes.

Consequences of Plagiarism• The consequences of plagiarism

vary, but are usually severe.

• Plagiarism will result in suspension.

• Plagiarism will result in expulsion.

• Plagiarism will result in a “0” for you and others.

• Plagiarism will result in criminal / civil charges

What Doesn’t Need to be Cited• Common knowledge does not need

to be cited.

• What is common knowledge?– Christy Clark is the Premier of British

Columbia is common knowledge.– Christy Clark is an idiot, is opinion and

therefore, not common knowledge.

• Also information which is not necessarily common knowledge but can be looked up easily may not need to be cited.

• For example: Canada is multilingual.

What Needs Citation?• You make a claim that could be

challenged.

• Example: Hot water freezes faster than cold water

• You quote somebody

“I want to die peacefully in my sleep, like my grandfather.. Not screaming and yelling like the passengers in his car”

How to Not Plagarize!From: “lifehack.org/advice-for-students-how-not-to-plagarize”

• Don’t copy entries from Wikipedia. Or any online source, really, but Wikipedia seems to be an especially easy target for students — and it’s incredibly easy to detect. 

• Don’t cobble together the free excerpts from several different “free essay” sites. Seriously. Use your melon.

• Don’t paste formatted text into your papers.

•  If you’re going to ignore the advice, at least don’t just cut-an-paste with no regard for formatting! Nothing says “this paper was plagiarized” more clearly than a Frankenstein’s monster patchwork of fonts and text sizes scattered across your page because you didn’t take the time to reformat everything you pasted into your document into a uniform typeface, size, and color.

• IF YOU DON’T KNOW IF IT SHOULD BE CITED….CITE IT.

• Better safe than sorry.

Help with not plagiarizing

• Acknowledge ALL Non-Original Words and Ideas– What's proper acknowledgement?

Usually it means including quotations to indicate language you're using verbatim and keeping thorough footnotes or endnotes to document the sources of ideas that are not your own

• Make It New– The aim of all academic research is to

use existing ideas as a springboard for your own

Difference between Plagiarism and Paraphrasing

• Paraphrasing does not mean changing a word or two in someone else's sentence, changing the sentence structure while maintaining the original words, or changing a few words to synonyms.  If you are tempted to rearrange a sentence in any of these ways, you are writing too close to the original.  That's plagiarism, not paraphrasing - University or North Carolina

Paraphrase vs. Plagiarism"The burly Khrushchev, seeking new

propaganda laurels, was eager to meet with Eisenhower and pave the way for a 'summit conference' with Western leaders."

• Changing a word or two (plagiarism)

The stocky Khrushchev, looking for new propaganda recognition opportunities, was eager to meet with President Eisenhower and to pave the way for a joint conference with leaders from the West.

"The burly Khrushchev, seeking new propaganda laurels, was eager to meet with Eisenhower and pave the way for a 'summit conference' with Western leaders.”

• Rearranging sentence structure (plagiarism)

Seeking new propaganda laurels, Khrushchev was eager to meet with Eisenhower.  He wanted to pave the way for a summit conference with leaders from the West.

"The burly Khrushchev, seeking new propaganda laurels, was eager to meet with Eisenhower and pave the way for a 'summit conference' with Western leaders.”

• Quoting fewer than all of the words (plagiarism)

"Khrushchev was eager to meet with Eisenhower and pave the way for a 'summit conference' with Western leaders."

How to Cite• Write the following website down as

it provides examples on how to cite:

http://learningcommons.ubc.ca/what-we-offer/citing-sources/

• Also this site will help with writing a paper…trust me….this one’s good.

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/