SCHOLARSHIP, DOCUMENTATION, AND PLAGIARISM

Effective scholarly discourse requires knowledge of the rules of documentation. When you write a research paper, you must document your sources, that is, give credit for the facts, interpretations, ideas which you use in your work and give this credit in the proper form. Use of the accepted forms enables your reader to find easily the works to which you refer. Although the rules of documentation are revised from time to time by the Modern Language Association, the American Psychological Association, and other groups which determine forms of documentation in a given field, the rules are the same for undergraduate students, graduate students, and professionals who publish in the journals of their fields.

Be sure that you know in advance which format your instructor requires for a research paper and consult a handbook (for example, the MLA Handbook for research papers in an English class) or style guide in your field for the details of documentation.

PLAGIARISM

Plagiarism is the presenting of the work of another as if it were your own. It is a grave academic offense and can be punished by dismissal from the university. Plagiarism can be intentional or unintentional. 

Unintentional plagiarism occurs when the writer is unaware of the need for, or the rules of, documentation. It is the student's responsibility to understand these rules; plagiarism is no less serious an offense because it is unintentional. Unintentional plagiarism often occurs when the student misunderstands the function of paraphrase. When paraphrasing, it is not enough to change a few words or to rearrange a sentence. The passage must be digested and completely rewritten. Any exact use of the language of the source requires quotation marks and documentation. 

Second, even if the language is the student's own, the idea of the passage may not be; paraphrasing does not relieve the student of the responsibility for documentation. Plagiarism occurs when the student presents as his own the sequence of ideas, the arrangement of material, or the pattern of thought of someone else. The exception to the need for documentation is what is known as "common knowledge" (information that most educated people could be expected to know, for example, that Neil Armstrong was the first man to step on the moon). 

If you have any doubts about the way you have handled your source material in your paper, discuss your problems with your instructor before handing in the paper.