Dear students,

I hope you are well and healthy. If you would like to send me a draft of your research paper, you can email it to jccoey@gmail.com
Given my current flu symptoms, it would not be wise for me to return to school today. I hope to return on Tuesday!

Today we are working to avoid plagiarism, which is the act of intentionally or unintentionally using someone’s ideas as if they are yours.  Being a great researcher is often about giving credit where credit is due, even if large pieces of your paper have been quoted, summarized, or paraphrased. But how do you avoid plagiarism?

Look at this sample problem sentence:

 

• Native American women value a deep spiritual connection to the environment.

What is the problem here? where did I find this? Who said it? Are these my ideas?

Let’s try adding a signal phrase, the most famous of course is ‘According to.’

• According to John Smith, Native American women value a deep spiritual connection to the environment.

So this is better. We gave credit to John Smith. But we still don’t know when it was written or who John Smith is. Let’s try adding an appositive phrase to help define John Smith and let’s cite the year this book was written.

• According to John Smith (2006), author of Pocahontas Is My Love, “Native American women value a deep spiritual connection to the environment.“

So there you have it. For further explanation about this example, visit the OWL at Purdue University, which has a comprehensive archive of topics related to research.

Each of your in-text citations should follow this process so that you avoid plagiarism, which is a serious academic failing and could lead to reprimand or worse expulsion! Gulp!!!

Kind Regards,

Mr. Coey