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Basic Information | Objectives | Online Course Resources |by UNCA Department of Literature and Language
In order to avoid confusion, the UNCA department of Literature and Language defines plagiarism in this widely accepted fashion: Plagiarism involves the appropriation and use of someone else’s ideas or words as one’s own. All definitions, terminology, concepts, and patterns of organization taken from an outside source must be identified and given credit in any essay or exam you write -- whether it be for the Literature Department or any other department.
When outside reading is undertaken for an assigned paper, you are responsible for recording accurate reading notes so that later, should you wish to incorporate some of the ideas or phraseology encountered in your reading, you may properly and adequately identify the source.
When writing your Economics 305 fundamental analysis and brief reports, identify your sources as follows:
1. Place quotation marks around all direct quotes, identifying the source of the quote using the citation style with which you are most comfortable (e.g., footnoting). Precede quotations incorporated directly into your text with a "signal phrase" warning the reader that a quote follows (e.g., According to David Colander, "One of the first lessons of writing is: Know for whom you are writing" [Colander, p. v]). Indent long quotes.
2. When paraphrasing or summarizing, identify sources using signal phrases and the citation style with which you are most comfortable (multiple signal phrases identifying the same source are unnecessary if providing them leads to redundancy).
Facts of general knowledge (such as the place and date of an author’s birth, honors granted during his or her lifetime, the titles and dates of published works, etc.) need not be footnoted. However, facts which are not in the area of general knowledge must be credited to the source. Ideas, interpretations, terms, and patterns of organization taken from an outside source many be either directly quoted (in which case the exact words should be placed in quotation marks) or paraphrased. Paraphrase is recommended whenever possible in order to avoid a disproportionate amount of direct quotation in your paper. In either case -- whether you are quoting or paraphrasing -- credit must be given to the source.
A good definition of paraphrase is provided by Watkins, Dillingham and Martin, who write: "To paraphrase is to express the sense of a passage entirely in your own words, selecting and summarizing only information and ideas that will be useful...It is the recording of relevant information in the student’s own words. It extracts items of information instead of merely recasting the entire passage and line of thought in different words."* The key to avoiding plagiarism is to remember that when an idea, phrase, term, definition, or pattern of organization is not your own, you are responsible for giving credit to the source from which you took these elements.
Remember: You have no reason to fear plagiarism if you follow the simple rule, "when in doubt, footnote."
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* Floyd C. Watkins, William B. Dillingham, and Edwin Martin, Practical English Handbook, 3rd ed. (New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1971).