First Things First . . .

What is plagiarism?

Who cares?

Why is plagiarism difficult to avoid?

Definite don'ts

What happens if you are accused?

How to Avoid Plagiarism

Use valid, credible sources for information

Take careful notes

Quoting, paraphrasing, and summarizing

Giving Credit

Papers

Presentations, websites, etc.

Citation styles

Is it plagiarism? (interactive game)

Copyright

What's the deal with the © ?

Is it copyright infringement? (interactive game)

Take careful notes

Step 3. Take notes.

You need to record the information for your paper. Let’s say you want to do the research quickly and get right down to writing.  The quickest way is to copy and paste what you want to quote into a word processor document.  

This excerpt has a couple of ideas in it, so you’ll have to decide how you’ll use the information. The best strategy is to have some idea of how the paper will be structured before you begin taking notes. You can copy and paste your source notes into the informal outline. Although the passage is not two complete paragraphs, it does contain a paragraph break, and that seems the logical place to break up the information into two notes.  When you use a source, you should use only one idea at a time, rather than quoting or paraphrasing huge blocks of text.

Here’s the area of your paper in which this note will best fit:

Growth of Internet Hate Speech

“Hate-based Web sites have grown dramatically in recent years. In 1995 at the time of the Oklahoma City bombing, there was only on hate site¹ but today, the Simon Wiesenthal Center² and the Anti-Defamation League³ have documented about 2,800 hate sites. The Internet has put the problem of incendiary hate into sharp relief, raising many difficult political, legal and social questions” (Leets 287-288).

Here’s another area you’re covering in your paper, where this note will fit:

Concerns about Internet Hate Speech

“Consequently, the American debate regarding censorship of hate speech is moving from traditional forms to newer ones found on-line. In particular, the Internet has become a key organizing tool for hate groups.⁴ As scholars have noted, the Internet is a powerful forum of communication with its broad reach, interactivity and multi-media capability to disseminate information.⁵ The Web is providing an unprecedented vehicle for forging communities⁶ and making communication quicker, easier and cheaper.  These features inevitably result in questions about impact, especially when viewed as empowering racists and other extremists” (Leets 288).

You have to add quotation marks to the passage; the computer doesn’t know you’re using a quote unless you tell it. You also must give the author’s last name and the page number (or paragraph number if there is no page number). In this case, you see the page number because the article was in the database in its full image form, exactly as it appeared in the original journal, with identical page numbers. In APA style, you’d also need the year the article was published.

At this point, you can leave the note in its raw form until you’re ready to put together your paper.

Go to Step 4:  Insert the source information