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ESS 205 -- Introduction to Physical Geology (Spring 2020): Citing Sources & Plagiarism

APA Citation Style

Beware of Purdue's Owl and do not use its citation generator. Refer to the many examples instead.

Basic APA Style

Author, A. A., Author, B. B., & Author, C. C. (Year). Title of article. Title of Periodical, volume number(issue number), pages. https://doi.org/xx.xxx/yyyy

Avoiding Plagiarism

When it is time to gather all of your notes and start writing the paper, avoid the most common mistake - plagiarism. Plagiarism is not only taking large parts of someone else's work and not attributing credit to that author; paraphrasing sections of a work, even using synonyms and citing the work, is also plagiarism.

  • Use direct quotations to support the paper's thesis.
  • Rethink and rewrite the author's original idea and express it in a new way.

Even if the ideas are rewritten, the source of the idea must be cited and the author given credit.

For further information, see the plagiarism video in the Research Den or the material on paraphrasing from the OWL at Purdue.