Avoiding Plagiarism!: Types of Plagiarism
Common Student Mistakes
Purposeful Plagiarism (How to Fail Your Paper or Project)
The Ghost Writer
The writer turns in another's work, word-for-word, as his or her own.
The Photocopy
The writer copies significant portions of text from a single source, without alteration.
The Potluck Paper
The writer tries to disguise plagiarism by copying from several sources, tweaking the sentences to make them fit together while retaining most of the original phrasing.
The Poor Disguise
Although the writer has retained the essential content of the source, he or she has altered the paper's appearance slightly by changing key words and phrases.
The Labor of Laziness
The writer takes the time to paraphrase most of the paper from other sources and make it all fit together, instead of spending the same effort on original work.
The Self-Stealer
The writer "borrows" generously from his or her previous work, violating policies concerning the expectation of originality adopted by most academic institutions.
Sources Cited (But Still Plagiarized)
The writer mentions an author's name for a source, but neglects to include specific information on the location of the material referenced. This often masks other forms of plagiarism by obscuring source locations.
The writer provides inaccurate information regarding the sources, making it impossible to find them.
The Too-Perfect Paraphrase
The writer properly cites a source, but neglects to put in quotation marks text that has been copied word-for-word, or close to it. Although attributing the basic ideas to the source, the writer is falsely claiming original presentation and interpretation of the information.
The Resourceful Citer
The writer properly cites all sources, paraphrasing and using quotations appropriately. The catch? The paper contains almost no original work! It is sometimes difficult to spot this form of plagiarism because it looks like any other well-researched document.
The Perfect Crime
Well, we all know it doesn't exist. In this case, the writer properly quotes and cites sources in some places, but goes on to paraphrase other arguments from those sources without citation. This way, the writer tries to pass off the paraphrased material as his or her own analysis of the cited material.
“What is Plagiarism?” Plagiarism.org. Accessed April 27, 2010. <http://www.plagiarism.org/plag_article_types_of_plagiarism.html>
Subject Guide
Is this guide helpful?
Do you feel that the information in this guide will help you avoid plagiarism?
