Finding Your Voice: FYS: Avoiding Plagiarism

Plagiarism --- Any ideas, images, or words you do not create yourself must be given proper credit, if you use them in your paper  it shows you have academic integrity and honesty, and helps your readers find your information sources. It shows where your information came from and adds credibility to your paper. When it is time to gather your notes and start writing the paper, avoid the common mistake --- plagiarism. Plagiarism is not only taking large parts of someone else's work, but also not attributing credit to that author.

Two tips:

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

Citing Your Sources

Online documents make it very easy to copy and paste information without thinking and without giving proper credit. Be certain you understand how to cite your sources.The Online Writing Center at Purdue University (also known as Purdue OWL) is an  excellent online resource to help you cite your resources properly. It also offers tips on how to construct a quality research paper.