1.3 Deconstructing Plagiarism

Plagiarism Is Complicated Stuff

We all know we’re not supposed to plagiarize, but what exactly does that mean? Taking ideas from someone else? Copying their words directly? Quoting someone else’s language without citing it?

Plagiarism happens when we use another person’s intellectual materials and don’t give them credit. As discussed earlier, intellectual property is defined as any kind of material (i.e., writing, art, music, film, etc.) or ideas envisioned and created by another person.Plagiarism is a kind of academic dishonesty—a kind of theft. Colleges and universities take plagiarism seriously; many disciplines even expel students who are found to be plagiarizing.

One favorite source for understanding citation practices, the Purdue OWL, defines plagiarism as “using someone else’s ideas or words without giving them proper credit.” It can certainly be difficult to trace where someone else’s ideas start and where yours begin or where your paraphrasing of a source starts and the original language you’re building from ends. But even accounting for those blurry lines, it’s still never OK to pass someone else’s work off as your own.

So What Exactly Is Plagiarism Again?

It can be helpful to understand what plagiarism is if you seek to avoid plagiarizing in your papers. This video offers a thorough explanation of how one might plagiarize if he or she is not carefully integrating sources into an essay. “10 Types of Plagiarism” by WriteCheckVideos.

Let’s break it down. We know that plagiarism involves including other peoples’ ideas or language in your work without attribution. But one of the reasons that plagiarism can feel so fuzzy is that it can be difficult to trace what exactly counts as “including other peoples’ ideas” or what kind of attribution is needed. There’s also a spectrum of severity when it comes to plagiarism, ranging everywhere from letting an author’s phrasing slip into your work without putting quotation marks around it to full-on copy-and-pasting paragraphs from a source without a citation. There’s even such a thing as self-plagiarism, which involves copying your writing from a previous context or assignment and including it in a new piece of writing without alerting your reader (or, in many cases, your instructor).

In most academic contexts you’re likely to encounter in an American college setting, the following can be considered plagiarism:

• Copying wholesale phrases, sentences, or paragraphs from another source without citing, either in the in-text citations or in the works cited / reference list.
• Including language from an outside source without putting it in quotation marks, even if the work appears in your works cited or reference list.
• Patchwriting, or following too closely with the language of a source you’re paraphrasing without putting quotation marks around borrowed phrases—again, even if the source appears in your works cited! (There’s more on the difference between paraphrasing and patchwriting below.)
• Fabricating citations or making up where you found a quotation because you don’t remember where you found it originally.
• Incorporating an original idea that comes directly from another source without attribution.
• Plagiarizing yourself or reusing your writing from a previous piece of writing. Yes, that means it is appropriate to cite yourself if you want to reference your writing in a new context! Ultimately, discuss this with your professor. They may have an opinion on how you use your previous writing.

It may start to feel like it is best to exclude any outside sources to avoid the risk of plagiarism. As for you, how can you avoid plagiarism? It’s quite simple:

1. As much as possible, do your work. In other words, always start by writing what you know about a subject, turning to sources only when you need to support your ideas with authoritative backing or when there’s a knowledge gap you cannot fill on your own. Or, of course, to satisfy requirements imposed by your teacher, i.e., who asks you to use a certain number of sources in completing an assignment. But even then, much of the work should be your own. Stay mindful of the expectations set by your instructor for proper citations,
2. Take notes carefully. If you add source material to your work, mark it or identify it in such a way that you will know it’s from a source. Cite the work immediately and add it to your works cited list. Pay careful attention to where your sources come from and express that in your work.
3. If you use someone else’s intellectual property, you must give them credit. If you bring their work into your assignment, you must mention them as the work’s owners. Remember, treat other peoples’ writing and ideas with respect and good faith, you’ll be just fine.

College students studying English or writing will use MLA—Modern Language Association—citation to set up their papers and handle sources. MLA is discussed elsewhere in this text, but understand for now that to properly cite intellectual property (also called source materials) in your writing, you must do the following:

• Mention the source’s owner/creator in your written work at the point where the source is used.
• Create a list of all of the sources you used in your assignment; you’ll do this by arranging them in a works cited list at the end of your essay.
• Make sure sources on the works cited page are cited in your essay. If you read some source materials to learn more about your topic but do not mention them in your paper, you do not need to list them in the works cited list. But if you later end up using those sources in your paper, then you’ll need to add them to your works cited.

Paraphrasing and Patchwriting: What’s the Difference?

When you’re working alongside another author’s ideas and putting their language into your own words, it’s easy to slip up and let your sentences hew too close to theirs. Before we dive into the tips and tricks for paraphrasing effectively and avoiding patchwriting, let’s take a look at what each of these terms means.

Paraphrasing means rephrasing another author’s ideas in your own words without using any of their exact wording (“Paraphrasing”). That sentence is a paraphrase of Purdue OWL’s definition of paraphrasing because I communicated the main idea of their quote without copying it word for word. You might think of paraphrasing as a form of mental digestion—you need to fully understand a quotation and have your sense of what it means before you can communicate it in your own way.

Patchwriting is when an author attempts to paraphrase a quotation but borrows too much language without putting quotation marks around it. In essence, patchwriting is shoddy paraphrasing! Here’s an example: say I was trying to paraphrase this quote from the Purdue OWL, as I did above:

Quotation: “Paraphrasing is one way to use a text in your own writing without directly quoting source material. Anytime you are taking information from a source that is not your own, you need to specify where you got that information” (“Paraphrasing”).

Patchwritten version: Paraphrasing is when you use a source in your own words without directly quoting the material. Wherever you take information from somewhere else, you have to specify where you got it (“Paraphrasing”).

Do you see all the similarities there? By reusing phrases like “without directly quoting” and closely following the structure of the second sentence, I’ve patch-written this source. The main problem is that I didn’t put quotation marks around the borrowed language, which means that even though I used in-text citations at the end, this would still count as plagiarism. That may seem extreme since the passage does show where the information comes from originally. There are indeed some small exceptions to this rule—namely when you’re citing statistics or numbers that would be impossible to phrase in another way. But in general, by failing to show which phrases are borrowed from the source, you are passing others’ words off as your own—and that takes us back to the definition of plagiarism at the start of the chapter.

How Can I Avoid Patchwriting?

• If the quote expresses the idea so well that you’re having trouble rephrasing it, quote it directly! Do check with your instructor that direct quotations are allowed—in science writing or tech writing, direct quotations might be banned!
• To help with paraphrasing, write or type out the quote in one place, then fully rephrase it on paper or on a different screen without looking at the original so that you’re not overly influenced by the original language. You may need to do that a few times to digest what the quote is saying and how you’d frame it yourself.
• Think about why you’re including the quotation in the first place: Is the specific language central to the reader’s understanding of the subject? If so, quote directly. If you’re trying to distill the idea and weave it more smoothly into your content, paraphrase it. And in both cases, cite it!

Why Is Academia So Strict about Plagiarism?

While academic writing might demand more formality in showing whose ideas or creations are whose, it doesn’t prevent writers from building on or collaborating with other authors. That kind of collaboration is the very reason why it’s so important to cite others’ work: academic conversations are more fair, equitable, and transparent for everyone when all participants use the same system to attribute original content to its source. Viewing citations as a form of protection for original ideas rather than an arbitrary set of rules that you’ll get punished for breaking can make the process of learning the standards feel a bit more intuitive.

Academic notions of plagiarism are also complicated by the fact that across other industries and media, creators borrow—or outright steal—from each other all the time. For example, according to an article by Albergotti, Apple is notorious for taking ideas from new apps available in the App Store and building them directly into the Mac operating system, in a move that’s common enough to have the nickname “Sherlocking.” The music industry sees constant lawsuits targeting pop artists like Dua Lipa, Olivia Rodrigo, and Sam Smith for cribbing from other musicians, though it’s always sticky to figure out where commonly adapted musical styles end and copyright-protected expressions begin. And when students themselves occupy an information environment where sharing, reposting, and memeifying are the norm, it’s not surprising that academia’s tough take on originality can feel baffling and arcane.

Any discussion of plagiarism raises complicated questions about authorship, intellectual property, and whether full originality is even possible. Rather than treating unintentional plagiarism as a “gotcha” moment to gatekeep academic discourse, it’s often more productive to treat it as a learning opportunity that sets students on the right track for navigating the world of citations. That’s why we’re expanding the conversation about plagiarism so that students can be more thoughtful and deliberate about their citation practices. Maybe understanding the reasoning behind citations will make it less tempting to throw our hands up and disregard citation standards altogether. While these standards might be stringent and difficult to master, their underlying purpose is crucial: to treat others’ ideas and creations with respect by attributing your sources accordingly.

Final Tips for Understanding Citation Practices in Your Discipline

As we’ve said before, plagiarism is contextual, which means that the standards for academic honesty and citation practices vary across disciplines and institutions. When you enter into a new writing situation, it is always your responsibility to understand and apply those standards. Here are some final tips and tricks for understanding the standards in new writing situations:

• Familiarize yourself with the academic conduct guidelines at your institution.
• Make sure you know what citation format you’ll be expected to use in each class (and if you’re not sure, ask your instructor directly).
• Bookmark a trustworthy citation reference like Purdue OWL.
• Consider using a research and citation tool to keep track of your citations.
• If you’re not sure whether something you’ve written might constitute unintentional plagiarism, visit your campus writing center or ask your instructor.
• If you’re finding yourself panicking over an assignment and tempted to plagiarize, stop and email your instructor. It’s much better to ask for an extension or get extra help on an assignment than to plagiarize and deal with the consequences later.
• Remember that learning citation practices is a continual process. Even your instructors have to brush up on the latest changes in citation styles. Mistakes are OK, so long as you are treating others’ work in good faith and giving credit where credit is due.
• When in doubt, ask your instructors, visit the Writing Center, or meet with a university librarian.