What is Plagiarism ?
Recognizing and Avoiding Plagiarism
NCSU Policies and Sanctions

What is Plagiarism?

To plagiarize is to appropriate and use someone else's words, ideas, or images as one's own and/or to use someone else's words, ideas, or images without properly citing the source.  In its Statement of Standards of Professional Conduct, the American Historical Association explains: "The word plagiarism derives from Latin roots: plagiarius, an abductor, and plagiare, to steal. The expropriation of another author's text, and the presentation of it as one's own, constitutes plagiarism and is a serious violation of the ethics of scholarship. It undermines the credibility of historical inquiry." ("Identifying Plagiarism" in the AHA Statement of Standards of Professional Conduct,  http://www.historians.org/pubs/Free/ProfessionalStandards.htm#Statement%20on%20Plagiarism, visited 8/26/08).  Note, though, that plagiarism is not limited to texts.  It can also involve the expropriation of another's graphics, images or ideas, and their presentation as one's own.

Moreover, as the AHA's statement on identification of plagiarism explains, "[p]lagiarism includes more subtle and perhaps more pernicious abuses than simply expropriating the exact wording of another author without attribution. Plagiarism also includes the limited borrowing, without attribution, of another person's distinctive and significant research findings, hypotheses, theories, rhetorical strategies, or interpretations, or an extended borrowing even with attribution." ("Identifying Plagiarism" in the AHA Statement of Standards of Professional Conduct,  http://www.historians.org/pubs/Free/ProfessionalStandards.htm#Statement%20on%20Plagiarism, visited 8/26/08).

Recognizing and Avoiding Plagiarism

If you still have trouble recognizing or understanding plagiarism, consult one of the following.

• "Examples of Plagiarism" From the Georgetown University Honor Code  ( http://gervaseprograms.georgetown.edu/honor/system/53501.html visited 8/26/08) 
• "Plagiarism Lesson," by Ted Frick (http://www.indiana.edu/~istd/practice.html, [8/26/08].  This set of interactive questions uses examples of original source materials and samples of student work to teach "What is Plagiarism at Indiana University."  It is the same as plagiarism at NCSU.
• Mary Lynn Rampolla, .A Pocket Guide to Writing in History, Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2004. Copies are on reserve at the Reference Desk in D.H. Hill Library. Here, we provide pp. 41-50 in which Ms. Rampolla offers examples of what constitutes plagiarism and good advice on how to summarize or paraphrase without plagiarizing

You can avoid being suspected of cheating or plagiarism and committing even inadvertent plagiarism by following these steps::

• For all assignments, especially team or collaborative assignments, check with the professor to make absolutely certain what level of cooperation and or sharing is permitted.
  • If you are having trouble getting started writing, talk to your professor.  It is also acceptable, indeed encouraged to talk to your classmates about lectures and readings.  However, it is a violation of the Honor Code for one student to share his/her completed written work with another.  Both the person who presents even a portion of a classmate's work as his/her own AND the person who allowed his/her work to be so used will be punished.
• From the outset, take good notes that separate the words and thoughts of the source from your own observations and conclusions.  
  • As the AHA Statement explains, "[a] basic rule of good notetaking requires every researcher to distinguish scrupulously between exact quotation and paraphrase." ("Identifying Plagiarism" in the AHA Statement of Standards of Professional Conduct,  http://www.historians.org/pubs/Free/ProfessionalStandards.htm#Statement%20on%20Plagiarism, visited 8/26/08). 
  • When you're using someone else's exact words in your notes, you should always put quotes around those words and acknowledge with proper citation the person or source from which they have come. 
  • As the cases of independent scholar Doris Kearns Goodwin and Naval Academy history professor Brian VanDeMark remind us, even professional historians are prey to sloppiness in this area, often at serious cost to their reputations and pocketbooks. 
• Know when and how to cite sources.  
  • It is not necessary to footnote a statement of common knowledge such as "On October 1, 1949, Mao Zedong declared the establishment of the People's Republic of China" or "Allied troops landed in Normandy on June 6, 1944."  However, if you were to assert a claim about Mao's health or mood that day, or to make a statement about the number of troops that landed, readers would expect to see a citation to a supporting source.
  • Even if you use your own words to write a paragraph that summarizes someone else's argument or builds on someone else's ideas, you need to acknowledge that reliance with both a sentence in the paragraph and a proper citation to the work. For example, you might explicitly say, "This paragraph summarizes John Doe's argument in his book, Anonymous People in History" and then provide a citation to the book in a footnote or endnote. Or you might say, "My argument here draws heavily on John Doe's" and again provide a full citation. However, a citation is not a license to paraphrase too much or to avoid singalling readers that you are quoting extensively. As Purdue University Professor of History Elliott Gorn observed, "a single footnote for several paragraphs of closely cribbed work is thin attribution by historians' standards, and not using quotation marks around others' words is a cardinal sin. (Elliott Gorn, "History for Sale," The Chronicle of Higher Education, March 1, 2002, http://chronicle.com/prm/weekly/v48/i25/25b01001.htm, visited 8/26/08)
  • "Acknowledging Work of Others", at the website of the Georgetown University Honor Code, is a useful guide.
  • For more on notetaking and citation in general, visit:
    • Humanities Reference librarian Cindy Levine's "Research Guide to History"
    • NCSU Department of History Tips on Research and Writing 
• Try to distance yourself from your sources by taking the time to digest and ponder what you have read, then express your conclusions as much as possible in your own words. 
  • "A basic rule of good writing warns us against following our own paraphrased notes slavishly. When a historian simply links one paraphrase to the next, even if the sources are cited, a kind of structural misuse takes place; the writer is implicitly claiming a shaping intelligence that actually belonged to the sources."("Identifying Plagiarism" in the AHA Statement of Standards of Professional Conduct,  http://www.historians.org/pubs/Free/ProfessionalStandards.htm#Statement%20on%20Plagiarism, visited 8/26/08). 
  • For a useful introduction to proper paraphrasing, see How to Recognize Unacceptable and Acceptable Paraphrases at Indiana University's webpage, "Plagiarism: What It Is and How to Recognize and Avoid It" (http://www.indiana.edu/~wts/pamphlets/plagiarism.shtml#original, visited 8/26/08) 
  • US historian Stephen Ambrose's habit of extensive paraphrasing eventually led to accusations that he had plagiarized significant portions of his numerous publications.
  • Ambrose would have done well to have read, "They Said It So Much Better. Shouldn't I Use Their Words?," a section from the Georgetown University Honor Code. (http://gervaseprograms.georgetown.edu/honor/system/53500.html visited 8/26/08)

NCSU Policies and Sanctions

Plagiarism is an offense against core principles of academic integrity, and a violation of NCSU's Code of  Student Conduct.  So that you will be absolutely clear about the University's standards and expectations, as well as the consequences for failing to meet those standards, we provide below elements of the Code's Chapters 8 (Academic Integrity), 9 (Cheating), 10 (Plagiarism), and 13 (Sanctions for Academic Honesty).  Note that in all cases, regardless of the seriousness of the offense and the sort of supplemental penalty (ranging from a reduced grade for the particular assignment to no credit for the course) that might have been imposed, all violations are also punished with a student being placed on academic integrity probation for the remainder of his or her career at NCSU.  A second violation will lead to suspension from the university.

"8. ACADEMIC INTEGRITY

8.2 A student shall be guilty of a violation of academic integrity if he or she:

- represents the work of others as his or her own;
- obtains assistance in any academic work from another individual in a situation in which the student is expected to perform independently;
- gives assistance to another individual in a situation in which that individual is expected to perform independently;
- offers false data in support of laboratory or field work.

8.3 The act of submitting work for evaluation or to meet a requirement is regarded as assurance that the work is the result of the student's own thought and study, produced without assistance, and stated in that student's own words, except as quotation marks, references, or footnotes acknowledge the use of other sources. Submission of work used previously must first be approved by the instructor."

"9. CHEATING

Cheating includes but is not limited to the following actions:

9.5 Working with another or others in completing a take-home examination or assignment when the instructor has required independent and unaided action.

9.11 Submitting, without prior permission of the instructor, any work by a student which has at any time been submitted in identical or similar form by that student in fulfillment of any other academic requirement at any institution.
9.12 Submitting of material in whole or part for academic evaluation that has been prepared by another individual(s).

9.11 Submitting, without prior permission of the instructor, any work by a student which has at any time been submitted in identical or similar form by that student in fulfillment of any other academic requirement at any institution.
9.12 Submitting of material in whole or part for academic evaluation that has been prepared by another individual(s)."

"10. PLAGIARISM

10.1 Submitting written materials without proper acknowledgment of the source.
10.2 Deliberate attribution to, or citation of, a source from which the referenced material was not in fact obtained."

"13. SANCTIONS FOR ACADEMIC DISHONESTY

13.1 The student will always be placed on academic integrity probation for the remainder of the student's academic career. In addition, one or more of the sanctions listed immediately below will be imposed.
13.2 A reduction in grade on the assignment on which the violation occurred.
13.3 No credit on the assignment, paper, program, test or exam on which the violation occurred., or
13.4 No credit for the course."