Chapter 22 Documentation Plagiarism, Citations, and the List of Sources

What Is Plagiarism?

Plagiarism is the act of presenting someone else’s intellectual property as your own. Put more simply, plagiarism is stealing someone else’s ideas or words and pretending that they are your own. Plagiarism is considered intellectual theft, so it is a serious academic offense that can result in a failing mark on an essay, a failing grade in a course, or expulsion from a university.

Sometimes a writer plagiarizes on purpose—for instance, by copying and pasting or purchasing an essay from a website and submitting it as original work. This often happens because a student has not managed their time and has left the paper to the last minute or has struggled with the writing process or the topic. Any of these can lead to desperation, which tempts a student to take someone else’s ideas and submit them as the student’s own.

In other cases, a writer may accidentally plagiarize due to carelessness, haste, or misunderstanding. For instance, a writer may be unable to provide a complete, accurate citation because of neglecting to record bibliographical information. A writer may cut and paste a passage from a website into her paper and later forget where the material came from. A writer who procrastinates may rush through a draft, which easily leads to sloppy paraphrasing and inaccurate quotations. Any of these actions can create the appearance of plagiarism.

It is important for students to know that intentional and accidental plagiarism are both treated the same way by instructors and institutions. It is not a valid defense to say that plagiarism was accidental. Once you submit an assignment, you are responsible for any plagiarism it contains—whether it was intentional or not.

The concepts and strategies discussed in this section connect to a larger issue—academic integrity. Like most other segments of society, the academic community highly values honesty. It is a point of honour taken seriously in every academic discipline and career field. You maintain your integrity as a member of an academic community by representing your work and others’ work honestly and by using other people’s work only in legitimately accepted ways.

Consequences of Plagiarism

Not only can plagiarism result in a failing mark on an essay, a failing grade in a course, or expulsion from a university, but there are other consequences of plagiarism, whether or not the student is caught:

• • Plagiarism infringes on the moral rights and legal rights of the original author.
• • A student who plagiarizes may gain an unfair advantage over other students.
• • A student who plagiarizes may not learn or understand the course material and may not be well prepared for further studies or for a career.
• • Plagiarism damages trust between the student and the reader and between the student and the instructor.
• • The investigation of plagiarism takes up a lot of an instructor’s time—time that would be better spent teaching or researching.
• • The investigation of plagiarism costs an institute a great deal of time and money.
• • Plagiarism damages the reputation of not only the student but also others in the field or the institution.
• • Academic integrity violations have serious educational and professional consequences. Students who are found guilty of academic integrity violations face consequences ranging from a failing grade to expulsion. Even when cheating and plagiarism go undetected, they still result in a student’s failure to learn necessary research and writing skills. Employees may be fired for plagiarism and do irreparable damage to their professional reputations. In short, plagiarism is never worth the risk.

Avoiding Plagiarism

Carefully organize your time, your research notes, and your writing process to guard against plagiarism. As you conduct research, maintain a detailed working bibliography, and take careful and accurate notes, keeping track of the sources of all ideas and noting when you’ve paraphrased and when you’ve quoted. Allow plenty of time to write your essay so there is no temptation to cut corners. After you’ve written your essay, check the original sources again to clear up any uncertainties. Double-check that you’ve included all sources on your references list.

To avoid plagiarism, follow these guidelines:

• • Understand what types of information must be cited.
• • Understand what constitutes fair dealing of a source.
• • Keep source materials and notes carefully organized.
• • Follow guidelines for summarizing, paraphrasing, and quoting sources.

The principles of plagiarism and academic integrity are consistent across disciplines and across post-secondary institutions. However, it’s also a good idea to carefully study your institution’s policies on plagiarism so that you know what is expected of you.

Common Knowledge

Common knowledge refers to facts or general statements that are frequently supported by and found in multiple sources. For example, a writer would not need to cite the statement that most breads, pastas, and cereals are high in carbohydrates; this is well known and well documented. However, if a writer explained in detail the differences among the chemical structures of carbohydrates, proteins, and fats, a citation would be necessary.

One method that can help you determine what is common knowledge is to imagine you are surveying one hundred average Canadians on the street. You ask them about a fact that is in a sentence in your essay. If 90 percent of the people would know the information, it is likely common knowledge. If only 10 percent of the people would know the information, it is likely not common knowledge.

For example, if you asked one hundred average people on the streets of a Canadian city who the current prime minister of Canada is, 90 percent of people would know the answer. This is common knowledge, so there is no need to cite a source.

However, if you ask those same people what the current prime minister’s policy is on the Safe Third Country Agreement, only 10 percent of the people might know the answer. Therefore, this is not common knowledge, so you must cite a source.

Sometimes, when writing about subjects they know very well, students assume that their own knowledge is common knowledge. As you write, imagine the scenario above: interviewing people on the street. This will help you determine whether your knowledge is indeed common knowledge or whether you need to cite a source to corroborate your knowledge.

When in doubt, cite!

Fair Dealing

In recent years, issues related to the fair use of sources have been prevalent in popular culture. Recording artists, for example, may disagree about the extent to which one has the right to sample another’s music. For academic purposes, however, the guidelines for fair dealing are reasonably straightforward.

Writers may quote from or paraphrase material from previously published works without formally obtaining the copyright holder’s permission. Fair dealing in copyright law allows a writer to legitimately use brief excerpts from source material to support and develop their own ideas. However, the writer must cite the source of those ideas.

For instance, a columnist may excerpt a few sentences from a novel when writing a book review. However, quoting or paraphrasing another’s work excessively, to the extent that large sections of the writing are unoriginal, is not fair dealing.

We watched Jorge begin to write about Indigenous storytelling and culture in Chapter 8. As he continues to write his essay about the importance of storytelling in Indigenous culture, Jorge is careful to enclose all quoted words in quotation marks and to cite sources correctly. Occasionally, however, he catches himself quoting a source at length. As he reviews the first draft, Jorge notices that he quotes extensively from one source in the first body paragraph:

Cajete writes, “Storytelling and experience form the foundation for much traditional Native American teaching” (128). Through stories, “skills in listening, thinking, and imaging are creatively moulded” (128). Stories teach “models of behaviour, the significance of ritual, the basic realities of human existence, and natural creative processes” (128). Many Indigenous myths concern “paradigms of proper relationships to plants, animals, and all of nature, as well as to the consequences of a poor relationship to nature” (129). Thus, “myth provides a vehicle for the transmission of generations of ‘understandings’ concerning the natural environment” (Cajete 130).

Source: Cajete, Gregory. Igniting the Sparkle: An Indigenous Science Education Model. Kivaki Press, 1999.

Upon reviewing the paragraph, Jorge realizes that he has drifted into unoriginal writing. Most of the paragraph is taken verbatim from a couple of pages of a book by a single source: Tewa scholar Gregory A. Cajete. Although Jorge enclosed the quoted material in quotation marks, he knows this is not an appropriate way to use the research in his paper. This paragraph does not demonstrate any critical thought about the topic of education via Indigenous storytelling. Instead, Jorge is merely parroting the ideas of one source. Jorge has lost control of the direction of his paragraph and his argument because the quotations have taken over. The paragraph is more Cajete’s paragraph than it is Jorge’s.

Jorge realizes he does not need to quote the source so extensively. As he revises the paragraph, he paraphrases the most important ideas. He also includes a topic sentence at the beginning of the paragraph and a closing sentence at the end.

First, storytelling is integral to the Indigenous approach to education and learning. Tewa scholar Gregory A. Cajete explains that through storytelling, Indigenous people learn skills needed in daily life, such as listening skills, thinking skills, creativity, and rituals (128). Moreover, the telling of stories is the key method for imparting important knowledge about the bigger aspects of life, such as the best ways for humans to interact with nature and the repercussions of failing to interact with nature properly (Cajete 129). Thus, stories convey essential information about all aspects of life, from daily survival skills to more abstract principles about how to live and be in the world to maintain harmony with the environment—but this is not the only role of stories in Indigenous cultures.

The revised paragraph begins with a topic sentence that states the main idea of the paragraph and relates it to the thesis. While the bulk of the paragraph still comprises information from Cajete’s book, Jorge has paraphrased and summarized the main ideas to show that he has understood them and reflected on them. He adds a closing sentence that sums up and transitions to the next body paragraph in the essay. This way, Jorge uses his research sources fairly and appropriately. He has also retained control of his argument: the paragraph now seems like Jorge’s, even with the inclusion of ideas from research. Therefore, it functions more effectively in his essay.

The Basics

A citation usually contains one or two key pieces of information to link the citation to a source. It doesn’t contain more information than that because a longer citation would interrupt the flow of an essay. Think of a citation as a code or a shortcut that leads the reader to the list of sources, where there is more detailed information about the source.

Here are some guidelines for constructing a typical citation:

• • Citations include the last name(s) of the author(s).
• • APA-style citations include the year of publication, but MLA style does not.
• • For paraphrasing, MLA-style citations require the page number (if the source is paginated), but APA style does not.
• • For quoting, both MLA style and APA style require page numbers (if the source is paginated).

Here are sample citations for information found on page 128 of Gregory A. Cajete’s book Igniting the Sparkle: An Indigenous Science Education Model:

Note that the MLA-style citation does not contain commas between the author and page number, but the APA-style citation requires commas between each element of the citation.

There are two main types of citations that appear within an essay, distinguished by their function and placement in a sentence. The two types are in-text citations and parenthetical citations.

In-Text Citations

In-text citations appear within a sentence in the essay. An in-text citation

1. a. tells your reader that the idea in the sentence came from a particular source
2. b. links to a specific entry on the references list.

An in-text citation is a good choice when you want to emphasize the source of the information—especially if the source is a reputable expert or is famous.

The first word(s) in the in-text citation must be exactly the same as the first word(s) of the corresponding entry on the list of sources. The reader will see the word in the citation, and to get more information about the source, he will turn to the list of sources, scan the left margin, and look for the word that appeared in the citation. If the citation and the entry don’t match, the reader will struggle to identify the correct source.

Parenthetical Citations

Parenthetical citations appear at the end of a sentence in the essay, and the entire citation is enclosed in parentheses. Like an in-text citation, a parenthetical citation

1. a. tells your reader that the idea in the sentence came from a particular source
2. b. links to a specific entry on the references list.

A parenthetical citation is a good choice when you want to minimize interruptions in the sentence and when you want your reader to focus on the ideas in the sentence rather than the source. Let’s look at the same sentences from the previous section with the source information placed in parenthetical citations instead of in-text citations.

Remember: the first word(s) in the citation must be exactly the same as the first word(s) of the corresponding entry on the list of sources. The reader will see the word in the citation, and to get more information about the source, he will turn to the list of sources, scan the left margin, and look for the word that appeared in the citation. If the citation and the entry don’t “match,” the reader will struggle to identify the correct source.