Other useful guides
What is plagiarism?
Plagiarism is defined as “Presenting work or ideas from another source as your own, with or without consent of the original author, by incorporating it into your work without full acknowledgement." (University of Oxford. (n.d.). Plagiarism.)
It's important to always cite your sources because when you write a paper or complete an academic project, you're entering into a conversation about your topic. Your citation list shows the conversation that you engaged in and invites your readers to partake. As you find sources, think about the conversation you are creating and who is invited - are you representing all the perspectives and stakeholders? If not, you might want to look for more resources!
Integrating Sources Properly
To successfully paraphrase or summarize a text, you must be able to understand it well enough to discuss its ideas without looking at it.
- Practice talking it through to a peer, your professor, a Writing Fellow or yourself, and see what language you use!
- If you have to look, you’ll end up “translating” or “reordering” it. Keep rereading it until you get it—or don’t use it!
When taking notes, indicate when you are copying words or phrases from the original
- Confusion in your notes is one of the top causes of unintentional plagiarism.
- Develop a short-hand system to help you remember.
These plagiarism tips are taken from BU ERC Writing Assistance instructional content, with special thanks to Maggie Boyd.
Resources to Support You
- ERC Writing AssistanceThe Educational Resource Center supports your writing through tutoring and workshops.
- ERC Academic CoachingImprove your study skills and habits with academic coaching.
- AskALibrarianGet help from librarians on any stage of the research process.
Quotations are the exact words of an author, copied directly from a source, word for word. Punctuation, capitalization, etc. must all be the same (with any small changes indicat[ed] with square brackets). Quotations must be cited!
Use Quotations When…
- you want to add to the power of an author’s words to support your argument
- you want to disagree with an author’s argument but avoid misrepresenting it
- you want to highlight eloquent phrases or passages
Summarizing involves putting only the main idea(s) of one or several writers into your own words. Summaries are much shorter than the original(s) and take a broad overview of the material. You still have to cite your sources when summarizing!
Summarize When…
- you want to establish background or offer an overview
- you want to synthesize knowledge from several sources
- you want to present the main ideas of a single source
Paraphrasing means rephrasing (not “translating” and not “reordering”!) the words of an author, putting their thoughts in your own words. And, yes, paraphrases still must be cited!
Paraphrase When…
- you want to avoid over-using quotations
- the idea is relevant, but the specific wording is not
- you want to provide your lens to present information so you can emphasize what matters to you
Why use a citation manager?
Citation managers (also called reference managers) are tools you can use to do the following:
- Save your references to books, articles, movies, and other sources information
- Organize those references
- Format bibliographies/works cited lists in multiple citation styles
- Insert in-text citations into the body of a document
- Share references with others
Our recommendation: Zotero
- ZoteroFree citation manager tool!
Zotero is a citation manager that works as a standalone application in conjunction with a web browser connector. The connector captures bibliographic information in your web browser and sends it to the app. Zotero is popular among researchers who want a quick, stream-lined tool for saving references and citing sources while writing. You can download and install Zotero for free. Once you download the app, be sure to download the proper connector for your web browser as well.
Video Modules
Use the following modules to learn more about plagiarism and academic integrity in action.
