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FYE: Moye Library Orientation: Citations: Giving Credit to the Information's Creators

Citing Sources & Avoiding Plagiarism

Moye Library Resources:

The Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 7th ed., is available at the Reference Desk and at the Circulation Desk in Moye Library. Additional copies are located on the shelves and are available for check-out.

Tutorials:
Websites:

These websites will be invaluable to you when working with APA. Consult them often.

Moye Library Resources:

The MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, 8th Edition is available at the Reference Desk and at the Circulation Desk. Additional copies are located on the shelves and are available for check-out.

Tutorials:
Websites:

The Turabian citation style, based on the manual written by Kate Turabian, is a condensed version of Chicago citation style from The Chicago Manual of Style. Turabian is designed for student papers whereas the Chicago style includes additional information for authors who are in the process of publishing.

Moye Library Resources:

The Chicago Manual of Style, 15th Edition, and A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations by Kate Turabian are available at the Reference Desk and at the Circulation Desk. Additional copies are located on the shelves and are available for check-out.

Websites:

The websites below reflect a citation style which is a combination of Turabian and Chicago, and reflect the citation format you will find in NC LIVE.

Signal phrases help introduce quotations and/or paraphrased information into your writing. Using signal phrases makes your academic writing more sophisticated and clearer to the reader. The use of signal phrases helps to identify the writer of the quotation and/or paraphrased information as well as adding in-text citation information in a less intrusive manner.

Websites:

These sites that walk you through how to incorporate a signal phrase and give you many examples of signal phrase verbs from which to choose.

Dropped quotations, those quotes that are inserted into your writing as a stand alone sentence, are confusing to a reader and show evidence of unsophisticated writing skills. By including a signal phrase in the sentence which contains the quote, you make the intent of the quote much more evident to the reader and you incorporate the in-text citation information in a less intrusive, more polished manner.

Websites:
Definition Types of Pagiarism Tutorials Quizzes Quoting & Paraphrasing

Definition

Moye Library Resources:

PLAGIARISM:
Plagiarism: Plagiarism is the intentional and unattributed theft of others' words, ideas or work. Its purpose is to misrepresent others' intellectual property as the plagiarist's own work. Plagiarism is undertaken with the intent to misrepresent the work as one's own and to deceive the recipient(s) of that work. Plagiarism is the most egregious form of cheating. An instructor making the charge of plagiarism has the burden of proof by clear and convincing evidence. Because of the severity of the accusation and potential consequences, no accusation of plagiarism shall be made without proof or compelling evidence.

Any accusation of plagiarism must be supported by the original or a copy of the plagiarized document(s) and/or other compelling evidence.

  • A student’s inability to explain key concepts or vocabulary in the paper,
  • lack of knowledge regarding the research or sources cited,
  • an admission of guilt by the student, or co-conspirator,

All shall be considered compelling evidence and acceptable grounds for an accusation of plagiarism to proceed.

Examples of plagiarism include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Using someone else's words ideas, or work without attribution, i.e., quotation marks, parenthetical citation, and/or an entry on the Works Cited page;
  • Cutting and pasting/copying text from any source whatsoever without attribution;
  • Buying papers and representing the product as one’s own work, whether citations exist within the work or not;
  • Buying papers and representing their products as one’s own work, even if portions of the work have been changed or material has been added to it;
  • Paraphrasing someone else's work without attribution;
  • Submitting another person's work as one’s own, i.e. using work done by another student; and/or
  • Receiving inappropriate help, i.e. having someone else write large and unattributed portions of the submitted work.

The intention of the University of Mount Olive is not to unjustly accuse students of plagiarism. Therefore, it is important to understand what plagiarism is not. Plagiarism is not

  • a mistake in citation or citation format,
  • use of a citation system different from the stated course requirements,
  • an incomplete citation,
  • an incorrectly done citation,
  • making mechanical/formatting errors.

The key concept of plagiarism is the intent to deceive. Without the demonstrable intent to deceive, the issue of plagiarism does not exist.

Types of Plagiarism

  • Direct
  • Mosaic or Patchworking
  • Self-Plagiarism
  • Accidental

Tutorials

Quizzes

Quoting & Paraphrasing

Websites:

Using Citation Makers

Our Worldcat Discovery search on the library website has a built-in citation creator. (The "Cite" button under each item in your search results.) 

Most of our databases will create citations for you, but REMEMBER to check them. Why? The database only adds the information it finds. If that information includes extra spaces, missing information, or anything else that is incorrect, it will add that to your citation. (This is the case for all citation makers, not just ours.)

I copied and pasted my citation straight from the citation maker. Why isn't my citation correct? 

The citation maker pulled information from an earlier edition of the article or book.

Example: The citation maker pulled information for an article published in 1998, instead of the book chapter published in 2016. 

The citation maker was unable to pull all of the information needed to create the citation. 

Example: The citation maker was unable to retrieve the correct link to the website for an APA citation. 

The citation maker pulled from a source that did not follow the grammatical standards of your citation style. 

Example: You are citing an article in APA, but the article listed the author's names in a different order than you would use in an APA citation. 

Is a citation maker even useful? Yes!

  • a citation maker can give you all or most of the information that you need to cite
  • it saves you the work of finding each piece of information
  • it will usually put the information into a format close to the correct format

 

Using Plagiarism Checkers

Should I use a plagiarism checker? 

Can it actually tell me if I have plagiarized? 

No. 

A "plagiarism checker" does not really check for plagiarism. It checks to see if the words in your paper match up with the words in papers, books, and articles that it has the permission to access. It probably doesn't have access to the papers written by your classmates and it might not have access to the text of a book or paper that you used as a source. It checks for similarity and duplication, not dishonesty. 

Is it more effective than checking my work myself? 

No, it is less effective.

Once you know how to give credit to other people's ideas and words by paraphrasing, quoting, and citing your sources, you will be able to recognize whether or not you have plagiarized. It's not about a magic formula, it's about giving credit to other people for the hard work that they put into their ideas and words. 

If you have questions about what plagiarism is, talk with the Writing Center or a librarian. If you have concerns that you have accidentally plagiarized or might accidently plagiarize, talk with your professor. 

Reflection Questions

Are the ideas you are talking about your original ideas? What makes an idea original? 

Did information from other sources help you come up with that idea? Why is it important to cite that information? 

If you using someone else's words, have you put those words in quotations and cited them in a way that those exact words can be found by someone else? Why is this important? 

What are the consequences of not giving credit to someone else's work? (The consequences aren't just academic. What might happen to the person whose work is stolen if they are not aware that it has been stolen?)