Avoid Plagiarism Understanding Citations and Bibliographies
Objectives Know what plagiarism is and how to avoid it Know what citations are and why to create them Know when you need to cite something Identify the elements of a citation Learn how to use proper APA formatting for citations
What is Plagiarism? You commit Plagiarism when you take credit for someone else s work or ideas. Doing so can lead to grade penalties, course failure and even expulsion. Please read Touro s complete statement on Academic Integrity at http://www.tourolib.org/services/guidestutorials/plagiarism.
How do You Avoid Plagiarism? First of all, don t do it on purpose! Never copy another s work or make up a source to back up your ideas. Not only will there be harsh penalties if you are caught, but you will also be doing harm to the scholarly community. However, it is also possible to commit plagiarism by accident, such as forgetting to cite sources in a paper. This tutorial will show you how to cite sources and avoid committing accidental plagiarism.
What are Citations? When you present any kind of research or scholarly work, you must give credit to every source of information you use. You do this by including citations and bibliographies with your work.
Why Use Citations? Apart from avoiding plagiarism, citations: Add legitimacy to your work, showing that you got information from credible sources Acknowledge the work of others Help interested readers to find the same source material that you used
In-Text Citations Let s look at how sources are cited in a paper. The citation for this paper, by the way, is: Te'eni-Harari, T., Lampert, S. I., & Lehman- Wilzig, S. (2007). Information Processing of Advertising among Young People: The Elaboration Likelihood Model as Applied to Youth. Journal Of Advertising Research, 47(3), 326-340. We will look at how to read that in a moment. Whenever this paper mentions someone else s work, a citation is included. This tells us the author of the source and year of publication.
Bibliographies At the end of the article, there is a list of references. This includes complete information for the sources cited within the text.
When do you cite? The only times you do not need to cite a source are: When the idea is original you thought it up yourself or it is your own opinion When it is common knowledge that everyone can be expected to know for example, that Albany is the capital of the state of New York Everything that is not original or common knowledge must be cited!
Quotations and Paraphrasing You must cite a piece of text when you are quoting it exactly. Here is an example: Te-Eni Harari et al. found that with young people, one cannot assume the conventional wisdom that popularity = effectiveness (2007). However, you must also cite when you paraphrase, or put it into your own words. Here is what that might look like: Research by Te-Eni Harari et al. suggests that popularity does not necessarily impact effectiveness (2007). It is in my own words but it is not my own idea. Therefore I have to cite it.
The Elements of a Citation There are different official citation styles, but all must include enough information to enable someone else to locate the source. For a journal article, this would include: Article Title Author s Name Journal Title Date of publication Journal Volume and Issue Number Article Page Numbers
APA Style Many social sciences and business publications use the American Psychological Association (APA) style. Look at the following example. Can you identify all of the elements of this citation? Te'eni-Harari, T., Lampert, S. I., & Lehman-Wilzig, S. (2007). Information Processing of Advertising among Young People: The Elaboration Likelihood Model as Applied to Youth. Journal Of Advertising Research, 47(3), 326-340.
Further Information For more information on how to create APA citations for books, articles, websites, images and more, visit the APA Style Guides official website: http://www.apastyle.org/ The Purdue Online Writing Lab is another good resource: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/ 560/01/