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Understanding and Avoiding Plagiarism: What Is Plagiarism?

At a Glance

  • Plagiarism is the use of another’s work, words, or ideas without attribution and has real consequences, both at Yale and beyond.
  • It is important to understand the main forms of plagiarism in order to avoid them and so you can actively give attribution where it is due in your academic work.
  • Certain high-risk situations may increase the temptation to plagiarize. It is important to plan ahead for these scenarios in order to reduce the risk of plagiarism.

Plagarism: An Overview

Plagiarism is usually defined as a discrete offense, a specific failure to give credit to a particular source. But it actually raises a much more fundamental question for writers: “Where is my voice in this project?” Seen in this light, the strategies that help you avoid plagiarism can also be strategies that help you gain power as a writer. Once your guiding question about your relationship to sources is “Where is my voice?” you are well on your way to using sources in an effective and legitimate way.

Plagiarism is the use of another’s work, words, or ideas without attribution. The word “plagiarism” comes from the Latin word for “kidnapper” and is considered a form of theft, a breach of honesty in the academic community. Plagiarizers suffer serious consequences in Yale College—including suspension or expulsion from school. (See the Yale College Undergraduate Regulations for more information.)

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But beyond the risk of penalties, there are urgent moral and intellectual reasons to avoid plagiarism. When you write for an academic audience, you’re joining an ongoing conversation. When you plagiarize, you join that conversation on false grounds, representing yourself as someone you are not. What is more, the act of stealing another’s words or ideas erases your voice. It may be difficult to think of yourself as making an original contribution in the context of a class taught by an expert. But every assignment is an invitation to add something new to the conversation sparked by the course. You cannot make an original contribution if you are not the owner of the words and ideas that you present.

Plagiarism takes many forms, but it falls into three main categories: using a source’s language without quoting, using information from a source without attribution, and paraphrasing a source in a form that stays too close to the original. There are variations on these categories that you may not be familiar with, so see the When You Must Cite section for a fuller discussion of the rules and see the Fair Paraphrase section for a discussion of how to use a source’s idea in your own argument.

You must always make clear in your written work where you have borrowed from others—whether data, opinions, questions, ideas, or specific language. This obligation holds whether the sources are published or unpublished and whether they are in print or on the Internet. When in doubt, be sure to check with your instructor about how to acknowledge sources in your papers, especially since every academic discipline has its own conventions.

Avoiding High-Risk Situations

Avoiding plagiarism means avoiding high risk situations. The following list is adopted from Gordon Harvey’s Writing With Sources and delineates strategies to help lessen the temptation to plagiarize. 

  1. Don’t wait until the last minute to write an essay.
  2. If you feel panicked about finishing a paper, let your instructor know.
  3. Use secondary sources only if asked to do so by the instructor.
  4. Don’t rely too heavily on a single source of information or opinion because it may lead you into unconsciously plagiarizing the plan or ideas of the original.
  5. In taking notes, be careful to distinguish the source’s idea from your own response to the source by quoting directly (using quotation marks) and indicating the source and page number next to each quotation or note (never take notes loosely or anonymously). Establish a system for distinguishing your insights from those of the source.
  6. Don’t feel that you have to sound as learned as the sources you are reading.
  7. Don’t look at another student’s paper when you are blocked.
  8. Don’t write from someone else’s notes, since you don’t know precisely the source of each idea.
  9. Don’t actually write a paper in tandem with another student, unless the essay is explicitly defined as a group project.
  10. If you encounter an idea you already thought of in a source, mention the source in your argument in a subordinate clause (“My claim, like Dennett’s, is that …”), but also try to show how your take on the question is somewhat different.
  11. Hold onto drafts and notes for essays until they are returned by your instructor.