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Guide for Accurately Using Sources
Since you’re often asked to support your ideas with outside sources, it’s
important to recognize when others’ facts, opinions, and ideas contribute to your
writing. There are three ways to present material from sources; the trick is to do so
accurately (and thus avoid the dreaded "P" word: plagiarism).
A Sample Passage
Here is a quotation from Robert Frost (the same one that appears at the entrance to the
L building):
Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper
or your self-confidence.
| Accurate Summaries |
Plagiarized Summary |
| According to Robert Frost,
education promotes objectivity (29). Robert Frost suggests that education allows people
to separate thought from emotion (29).
|
Education is the ability to
maintain objectivity. Even though this summary is accurate, this example is plagiarized
because
The key
words are too close to the original.
The person
who expressed the idea is
not mentioned.
|
| Accurate Paraphrase |
Plagiarized Paraphrase |
| Robert Frost asserts that
education gives people the power to consider alternative viewpoints without getting
involved emotionally (29). |
Robert Frost says that
education is the ability to listen to anything without getting emotionally involved. Even
though Frost is mentioned, this example is plagiarized because
è The key
words are too close to the original.
è The sentence
structures too closely resemble
the original.
|
| Accurate Quotation |
Plagiarized Quotation |
| "Education," Robert
Frost states, "is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper
or your self-confidence" (29). |
Education allows you to
consider other views without losing your temper or your self-confidence. This example is
plagiarized because
è There
are no quotation marks to show that parts of the idea were expressed by someone else.
è The
person who expressed the idea is not mentioned.
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Source: Freeman, Criswell. The Graduates' Book of Wisdom: Common
Sense Advice for the Rest of Your Life. Nashville: Walnut Grove Press, 1998.
Credits: This document was created by the Department of Communication, Languages, and
Literature, © 2001.
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