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American Studies

How to Avoid Plagiarism

In order to avoid plagiarism, you must give credit when

  • You use another person's ideas, opinions, or theories.
  • You use facts, statistics, graphics, drawings, music, etc., or any other type of information that does not comprise common knowledge.
  • You use quotations from another person's spoken or written word.
  • You paraphrase another person's spoken or written word.

Recommendations

  • Begin the writing process by stating your ideas; then go back to the author's original work.
  • Use quotation marks and credit the source (author) when you copy exact wording.
  • Use your own words (paraphrase) instead of copying directly when possible.
  • Even when you paraphrase another author's writings, you must give credit to that author.
  • If the form of citation and reference are not correct, the attribution to the original author is likely to be incomplete. Therefore, improper use of style can result in plagiarism. Get a style manual and use it.

This content is part of the Understanding Plagiarism tutorial created by the Indiana University School of Education.

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