The Year You Were Born

Plagiarism is using another person’s ideas or words without clearly acknowledging or citing the source of that information.  You must give credit whenever you use:

• Another person's idea, opinion, or theory.
• Direct quotes from another person's actual spoken or written words.
• Paraphrasing of another person's spoken or written words.
• Any piece of information this is not common knowledge (e.g., fact, figure, statistic, chart)
• Multimedia created by another person (e.g., photo, drawing, film clip, music, etc.)

The primary reason to cite your sources is to avoid plagiarism and give proper credit to the original author or creator.  Other reasons for citing your sources:

• Enables a reader to locate the sources you cited.
• Demonstrates the accuracy and reliability of your information.
• Shows the amount of research you’ve done.
• Strengthens your work by lending outside support to your ideas.

Citing:  Also called documenting or referencing.  The recording of information (e.g., author, title, publisher, publication date, page numbers, database name, URL address, etc.)  from a source (e.g., book, magazine article, web site) which allows an instructor or anyone to identify and locate a source.  By citing your sources, you are also giving proper credit to those sources. This information is then formatted to a citation style (e.g., APA, MLA, Chicago) specified by your instructor and inserted into your essay.

Common knowledge:   Facts or ideas that are well know by many people and that can be found in numerous sources (e.g., Barack Obama is our current president of the United States).

Quotation:  Also called a quote.  Using someone's exact words.  When you use a direct quote, place the passage in quotation marks and cite the source according to the citation style specified by your instructor (e.g., Using a direct excerpt from Barack Obama’s January 2009 inaugural address).

Paraphrasing:   Using someone's ideas, but putting them in your own words. This is probably the skill you will use most when incorporating sources into your writing. Although you use your own words to paraphrase, you must still cite the source of the information (e.g., Using an excerpt from Barack Obama’s January 2009 inaugural address and putting it in your own words).

• Make sure to place direct quotes from another person in quotation marks. This is especially important to remember when you are taking notes from any source you use.  Make sure to copy the words exactly as they appear in the source.
• When you paraphrase, be sure you are not just changing or rearranging a few words.  Carefully read over the text you want to paraphrase.  Write out the idea in your own words.  Check your paraphrase against the original text to make sure you have not accidentally used the same phrases or words.
• Make sure to include complete and correct citations in your works cited list.
• Make sure to follow the guidelines and rules for the citation style specified by your instructor (e.g., APA, MLA, Chicago).
• In the beginning of the first sentence containing a quote or paraphrase of another’s work, make it clear that it is someone else’s idea  (e.g., According to Smith . . . )
• Make sure to include in-text citations within your paper for any information taken from another person’s work.  A typical in-text citation includes the author's last name and the page number of the source.  The in-text citation is inserted at the end of the last sentence containing a quote or paraphrase of another’s work - example: (Jones, 127).  Check with your instructor or a librarian for other in-text citation examples.

The materials contained on this page come from a LibGuide created by the librarians at J Sargeant Reynolds Community College, Richmond VA.