N.B. Please try to understand the ideas behind referencing and discussing different authors' ideas in your work. If you do not have time to do that, you can follow this beginner's guide.
You may stop after any of these steps, and you will have successfully avoided plagiarism. To fully develop your writing, you will probably prefer to progress through as many steps as you can.
Contents
Step 1: Direct Quotation
Step 2: Paraphrase
Step 3: Add your own examples (Optional)
Step 4: Add your own comment (Optional)
Step 1: Direct Quotation
- Find the idea that you want to include.
- Write this idea in direct quotes.
- Add the author name and page number.
- Put the full reference at the end of your document, to make sure you remember to include it.
- You have avoided plagiarism. Stop here, or continue to Step 2, to develop your writing further.
Example: Direct Quotation
"Universities also place the burden of understanding plagiarism and attribution conventions on students. There are myriad information-laden web-based self-help tutorials and workshops on related sites for the universities in this study. Many are excellent resources and can be helpful. Nevertheless, the lack of additional, detailed individual assistance about the techniques of engaging in academic writing conventions, particularly for students studying in off-campus or distance modes, raises issues of equity for plagiarism management policy makers." (Sutherland-Smith, 2010:9).
References
Sutherland-Smith, W. (2010) 'Retribution, deterrence and reform: the dilemmas of plagiarism management in universities', Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management, 32(1) 5-16. Available at http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/13600800903440519 (Accessed on 11 January 2019).
Step 2: Paraphrase
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- Decide what the key information is, for the purposes of your discussion.
- Change the order of the ideas and the words. This can help you to emphasise your interpretation of the original text.
- Change the word form/grammatical form if necessary.
- Use synonyms if appropriate, but do not change any specific terminology. In the example below, terms such as 'plagiarism management', 'universities', 'students' and 'distance' were not changed. The best place to find suitable synonyms will be elsewhere in the same article.
- If some words stay the same in the same order (three or more consecutive words), you need to use quotation marks around these words.
- Repeat the author's name or a pronoun through the paraphrase, so it is clear that we are still reading a paraphrase.
- Add a detail about where the information came from, if necessary. Here, the information 'through her study of eighteen policies on plagiarism from different universities' was added, to give some context to the claims.
- Keep the author name and page number. (You may have been told that you do not need the page number for a paraphrase, but if the idea came from one specific page, it is still useful to include it. That way, you can check the information again if you need to.)
- You have avoided plagiarism. Stop here, or continue to Step 3, to develop your writing further.
Example: Paraphrasing
The responsibility for learning how to reference correctly and avoid plagiarism tends to be passed from the university to the students, as Sutherland-Smith (2010:9) found, through her study of eighteen policies on plagiarism from different universities. She also points out that although many universities provide self-access resources for students to try to learn more about this area, the support provided is, on the whole, inadequate. Sutherland-Smith expands further to explain that this inadequacy is partly because the advice provided is not specific enough for each student, and partly because distance students will often receive even less support. She concludes that these issues carry implications for the decisions around plagiarism management, as some students may receive more assistance than others, leading to questions of inequity.
References
Sutherland-Smith, W. (2010) 'Retribution, deterrence and reform: the dilemmas of plagiarism management in universities', Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management, 32:1 5-16. Available at http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/13600800903440519 (Accessed on 11 January 2019).
For more help with paraphrasing, look at the page on paraphrasing:
Step 3: Add your own examples (Optional)
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Do you have any examples of what is being discussed? These could be from:
- your own practice or professional experience
- from observations you have made
- from other literature or published materials.
- Include an example with a phrase such as 'To illustrate...' or 'An example of this can be seen in...'
- Include the reference if your example is from published materials
- You have avoided plagiarism. Stop here, or continue to Step 4, to develop your writing further.
Example: Adding your own examples
The responsibility for learning how to reference correctly and avoid plagiarism tends to be passed from the university to the students, as Sutherland-Smith (2010:9) found, through her study of eighteen policies on plagiarism from different universities. She points out that many universities provide self-access resources for students to try to learn more about this area. An example of this can be found on the website 'Writing Centre Online' (UCL Institute of Education, 2019), which includes a 'Beginners Guide' page with step by step instructions on avoiding plagiarism, as well as various links to referencing and plagiarism resources. Despite this type of provision, Sutherland-Smith observes, the support provided is, on the whole, inadequate. Sutherland-Smith expands further to explain that this inadequacy is partly because the advice provided is not specific enough for each student, and partly because distance students will often receive even less support. She concludes that these issues carry implications for the decisions around plagiarism management, as some students may receive more assistance than others, leading to questions of inequity.
References
Sutherland-Smith, W. (2010) 'Retribution, deterrence and reform: the dilemmas of plagiarism management in universities', Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management, 32(1) 5-16. Available at http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/13600800903440519 ( Accessed on 11 January 2019).
UCL Institute of Education (2019) IOE Writing Centre Online. Available at: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/ioe-writing-centre (Accessed on 11 January 2019).
Step 4: Add your own comment (Optional)
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Do you have any comments on the ideas? These could be:
- to support the ideas
- to suggest the ideas are not valid
- to show how the ideas connect to something else
- to comment on the context
- to add another critical comment. See the section on criticality for more ideas: Criticality
Make sure it is clear, through the language you use, which is your comment, and which is the original paraphrase.
Example: Adding your own comment
The responsibility for learning how to reference correctly and avoid plagiarism tends to be passed from the university to the students, as Sutherland-Smith (2010:9) found, through her study of eighteen policies on plagiarism from different universities. She points out that many universities provide self-access resources for students to try to learn more about this area. An example of this can be found on the website 'Writing Centre Online' (UCL Institute of Education, 2019), which includes a 'Beginners Guide' page with step by step instructions on avoiding plagiarism, as well as various links to referencing and plagiarism resources. Despite this type of provision, Sutherland-Smith observes, the support provided is, on the whole, inadequate. It is interesting to note that this inadequacy can be seen at both an institutional level and from a student perspective, which will have implications as discussed in the following section. Sutherland-Smith expands further to explain that this inadequacy is partly because the advice provided is not specific enough for each student, and partly because distance students will often receive even less support, possibly, we could note, as they are wholly reliant on online materials. She concludes that these issues carry implications for the decisions around plagiarism management, as some students may receive more assistance than others, leading to questions of inequity. It could be considered that inequities are a particularly important issue in discussions of plagiarism management, given that controls on plagiarism could be seen, in principle, as intended to make the system fairer.
References
Sutherland-Smith, W. (2010) 'Retribution, deterrence and reform: the dilemmas of plagiarism management in universities', Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management, 32(1) 5-16. Available at http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/13600800903440519 (Accessed on 11 January 2019).
UCL Institute of Education (IOE) (2019) Writing Centre Online. Available at: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/ioe-writing-centre (Accessed on 11 January 2019).
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