Plagiarism in Academia

• Direct Plagiarism is including a verbatim quotation without a proper citation.
• Paraphrasing without a citation is considered passing off the ideas of others as your own, whether that was your intention or not.
• The inclusion of graphics, tables, charts or web pages without proper acknowledgement.
• Turning in the same paper for more than one class. This is also considered self-plagiarism.

Tips for Avoiding Accidental Plagiarism

1. Don't procrastinate the research part of the research paper! Rushing the bibliography step of a paper will likely lead to small but critical mistakes.
2. Keep track of your sources and quotations as you go. You may want to put off creating citations until the end, but trust us making a bibliography in the beginning is much easier than retracing your steps. Try using a Research Log to stay organized and save yourself some time!
3. Ask the the Writing Center online or in-person about how to correctly incorporate the work of other authors into your research paper.

See the Online Writing and Citations page of the Research Help guide for more information on planning and writing academic papers.

Adapted from Vanderbilt University Libraries