how to avoid plagiarism
Given the extreme consequences surrounding issues of academic dishonesty, there are several ways to ensure that you do not unintentionally fall prey to acts of plagiarism:
Take good notes. Taking effective notes as you review your information sources is key to avoiding inadvertent plagiarism. Simple practices, such as highlighting, or placing quotes around verbatim material that you have copied down can ensure that you pay special attention to that particular material when you use it in your paper. Recording pertinent citation and publication information as you go through and review your sources is also very good practice. These notes will help you complete your reference list, and provide you with all the necessary details that will later be required to properly cite your sources.
Summarizing and paraphrasing appropriately. After you've read a passage from a source, use your own words to reduce the content of a passage and capture only the essential information that reflects the major points made by the author or the main theme or message. If you need to use information that is more detailed in nature, or cite a specific example, make sure that you modify words or phrases that risk matching the original too close. Even with a citation, exact phrasings that are not indicated with quotation marks or a block quote can be considered plagiarism.
Pick a style guide and stick to it. Style guides exist to provide authors with detailed guidelines regarding format and documentation of sources. Following these guidelines in full and consistently will allow you ensure that all your sources have been documented properly and help guard you against unintentional plagiarism due to confusion with citation and referencing.
