Plagiarism, or rather, avoiding it, is critical for students hoping to succeed at universities across the world.  While avoiding plagiarism may seem a daunting task, there are a number of valuable and reliable resources, many of them published by universities themselves, designed to help students write solid papers within the confines of academic integrity. The list of ten resources below provides a good cross-section of the resources available.

Most of the Web sites provide examples of plagiarized material alongside the original material, helping to illustrate the difference between paraphrasing a source and using the information in the source to write a paper in your own words.  Educating yourself about plagiarism, what it is, and how to avoid it, will help to make you a stronger writer, and will help to keep your work within the confines of academic integrity

1. Plagiarism.org

This comprehensive site provides information on integrity in writing, including FAQs about plagiarism, and tips on avoiding it while writing research papers.

1. Avoiding Plagiarism (on the OWL at Purdue)

This site provides information on preventing plagiarism in academic writing in the United States.

1. Research Resources from Turnitin.com

This site, an informational resource from turnitin.com, a popular plagiarism detection service, provides information about what plagiarism is, why it is important to avoid it, and how to avoid it.

1. How to Avoid Plagiarism (Northwestern University)

This site is somewhat “wordy,” but it provides some very helpful examples of appropriate citation of several different types of source material.

1. Plagiarism: A Lemonade Tutorial

This tutorial contains helpful information about plagiarism couched in the humor of Professor Sherman Dorn of the University of South Florida.

1. Plagiarism: How to Recognize It and Avoid It (Indiana University)

This site provides examples of acceptable/unacceptable paraphrasing, as well as strategies to avoid plagiarism.

1. What is Plagiarism? (Georgetown University)

This site provides information about a number of different plagiarism topics, including responses to several common excuses students make for plagiarized material.

1. Academic Integrity at Princeton

This site provides side-by-side examples of plagiarized material, identifying why the example is plagiarism, and providing information about “best practices” for avoiding plagiarism.

1. What is Plagiarism? (Rutgers University)

Three unique video clips helping to explain plagiarism in a dynamic context.

1. Plagiarism Tutorial (Duke University)

This tutorial contains some university-specific information, but primarily focuses on the definitions of and how to avoid plagiarism in the college setting.

Research Paper Plagiarism Basics

Plagiarism occurs when an individual uses ideas or modes of expression from another source without giving credit to the original author.  Plagiarism can be malicious, i.e., cutting and pasting work from another source and claiming it as your own, but it can also be less intentional.  For example, many students working on research papers keep their sources open in Web browser windows or textbooks, and when writing, refer to the original sources so often that the words and ideas of the original authors creep into the paper or assignment, making it plagiarized material.   This doesn’t mean that students should be afraid to use source material when writing a research paper, but it does indicate the importance of being vigilant about using your own words and crediting the work and ideas of others.

Proper citation is a critical component in avoiding plagiarism. Generally speaking, parenthetical citations or footnotes (depending on the citation style) are needed at the end of a sentence or paragraph containing ideas gleaned from another source that have been presented in the paper in your own words.  Putting something into your own words is more comprehensive than replacing a few key words with synonyms.

The best way to be sure that something is truly presented in your own words is to read and study your source material until you are confident that you have a thorough understanding of the material that you plan to incorporate into your research paper, then close all browser windows, books, and papers, and write what you remember.  After writing what you remember, feel free to check your source material against your work for accuracy and vocabulary, but be sure to put your sources away again before any extensive writing.

It is occasionally appropriate to use direct quotations from source material or experts in the field of study to highlight important points in a research paper.  Generally speaking, the use of direct quotations should be restricted to accentuating or supporting a concept that has already been explained in your own words.

When using a direct quotation, the words must be put into quotation marks (or indented and single-spaced if the quote is longer than three lines), and a citation must appear directly following the quote.  Failure to use appropriate citation indicators, such as quotation marks and reference citations, when using direct quotations will always result in plagiarized material.

Another way that plagiarism often appears in academic writing is through students working together on an assignment.  Often, collaboration is a critical part of coursework.  Professors are typically very supportive of study groups and other methods of students helping one another to understand material.  However, when writing individual assignments and research papers, it is important that students are graded on their own work.

The principle of putting away your sources can be similarly applied to study groups:  work with other students to share and understand the material that will support your research paper, but be sure to actually write the paper on your own.  Often, this means disengaging from the study group or a roommate, and writing the paper in isolation.  Remember that using email or instant messaging systems while writing may produce the same results as physically talking about the material as you write, so these should be avoided as well during the actual writing of the paper.

How to Avoid Plagiarism in Your Research Papers

• Research your topic thoroughly, but put all source material away before actually writing the paper. This includes closing all browser windows containing source material.
• If group work is permitted and/or appropriate, work with others to discuss and understand the topic, but do the writing of the paper on your own.  Don’t use email or instant messaging while writing the paper.
• Be sure to cite any ideas that are not your own.  Generally, a parenthetical citation is needed at the end of a sentence or paragraph that contains new information about a topic that was gleaned from your reference material.
• Direct quotations should be used sparingly to highlight or support important points that have already been described in your own words.  Direct quotes must be contained in quotation marks and require a citation immediately following the quotation.
• Never cut and paste material from another source and claim that it is your own work.

When putting material into your own words, do not simply replace key words with synonyms.  Research papers should contain writing that expresses your own understanding of the material, in your own words.

One of the easiest and quickest ways to help get your sources formatted is to use the online Citation Machine at http://citationmachine.net/.  You have a choice of different formats—MLA, APA, Chicago, and Turabian—so most likely you will be able to get your list of sources whipped into shape in no time flat.

For those of you who have the latest version of Microsoft Word, you will want to take advantage of everything offered under the Reference tab. Using features found in Word, you can insert citations directly into your paper as you write. When you are finished, you likewise can easily create your bibliography.

Even though these online tools make research paper formatting a cinch, you still need to have all of the relevant information to input into the fields.

The trickiest types of sources are online ones. For these, you need to include as much information in your citations as you can possibly find.

The minimum should include page title, site title, publishing or last revision date, date of access and URL. Other pieces of information include, but are not limited to, author and the site’s sponsor. The more information you can find, the better.   But remember to check for accuracy.

No matter how you go about creating them, remember that your citations should include all the information a reader would need to locate the same source.

Usually you will have a general idea about your topic for your research paper, but often the hard part is refining the topic so that it is manageable. Here is where Google Scholar can help.

Consider for a moment you have been assigned to research the connection between rainforests and global climate. For fun, you might begin with the one key word just to get a broad overview of what’s out there. A search for rainforest will give you over 100,000 sources, including the book, The Tropical Rain Forest: An Ecological Study by P. W. Richards, which pops up near the top of the list, so you are off to a good start. But you will also find near the top of the list the article “Gap Partitioning among Tropical Rainforest Trees,” which completely misses the mark. You may be interested in the seed distribution and so forth, but not for this particular project.

At this point, you will probably want to further refine your search by adding the other key phrase, global climate. When you do, you will still get over 7,000 hits and will find the 1993 article, “Rainforest burning and the global carbon budget: Biomass, combustion efficiency, and charcoal formation in the Brazilian Amazon.” From the abstract, you can tell that this looks promising, but don’t overlook the fact that this was published in 1993.

This is not to say that you can’t still use the article, but you probably want to keep looking for sources that are more timely and perhaps more relevant. For example from your search results, you will find the article, “The impact of global climate change on tropical forest biodiversity in Amazonia.” This one was published in 2004, so it is more timely.

You may want to continue refining your search. An effective way to do this is to skim  through the search results. In our example of rainforest and global climate, you will see repeated references to Amazon. By adding this word to your search string, you further limit your topic and cut the number of sources in half.  Just be careful that you don’t get carried way and limit too much. Strive for a balance as you refine your topic.

And remember, even though you seem to be getting good results from you key word searches, not all sources are equal.  Some considerations include the timeliness and overall relevancy of the source. This is fairly easy to determine by taking quick look at the publication date and the abstract.

If you keep these points in mind and use an effective search strategy, Google Scholar can help you find the right sources with minimal effort.

So you are ready to write your paper, but are still not quite sure about the MLA format?  Never fear! There are several good online sources to get you started and to keep you going.

Here are the top ten links for MLA research paper help.

1. http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/557/01/

OWLs, or Online Writing Labs, are a good place to start when looking for any help with words, but this is especially true when working with format. The Purdue Owl has long been considered one of the best.

1. http://www.txstate.edu/SLAC/writing/documentation/SLACTips.pdf

The Student Learning Assistance Center at Texas State University San Marcos gives a thorough and detailed helpsheet, but notice this is a pdf file.

1. http://depts.gallaudet.edu/englishworks/writing/mlaguide.html

These guidelines from Gallaudet University are effectively organized for quick help.

1. http://www.ccc.commnet.edu/mla/index.shtml

This is among one of the most thorough sites available. It offers help not just with formatting, but also each step along the way in the entire  research process.

1. http://www.unc.edu/depts/wcweb/handouts/mla.html

The University of North Carolina tells you the why, what, and how of citations.

1. http://jerz.setonhill.edu/writing/academic/mla_style.html

Dennis G.  Jerz’s “Step-By-Step Instructions” show you what your paper should look like and include tips about font style and size.

1. http://www.dianahacker.com/resdoc/p04_c08_s2.html

This easy to use site even includes information about how to cite letters.

1. http://www.bedfordstmartins.com/online/cite5.html

Here you will find good examples including parenthetical citations

1. http://homeworktips.about.com/od/mlastyle/ig/Sample-MLA-Pages/

About.com offers a whole range of Homework/Study tips. Some of the best things about about.com are the thumbnails that show you sample pages for quick reference.

1. http://www.wikihow.com/Cite-a-Wikipedia-Article-in-MLA-Format

These days nearly everybody goes to Wikipedia, but not everybody knows how to use the information correctly in a research paper. Here is the help you need to make sure you have cited this source the right way.

Every research paper will use other sources within the text. As per copyright infringement rules, every author should quote the name of the source material in his work. In technical terms it is said as in-text citing of others work.

MLA citing style is the preferred style of citing works in research papers. Giving all the details of the source material within the text would be very confusing for the readers.

Hence, while citing source materials within the text, only the author name and the page number are generally used. Entire information about the cited work is given at the end of the research paper under the title Bibliography. In Bibliography, author last name, initials, title of the work, date and year of publication, place of publication, name of the publisher and the medium of publishing are given.

Here are some simple rules of MLA citing style.

• Every in-text citation should include author name and the page number separated by a space. First letter of the author name should be capitalized.

Almonds help to combat diabetes (Herman 28).

• If the author name is not available, the title of the book is given by enclosing the title in quotations. It would be readable if the title is made short.

Almonds play role in controlling diabetes (“The diabetic guide”).

• If you are directly quoting the work from other source, it should be enclosed in quotations. Make sure to present it exactly, without altering any words.
• Another MLA citing style for the author name of the source material is giving the author name as an introductory phrase. In this case, as the author name is given in the text, only the page number will be given in the parenthesis. Never quote just the page number without giving the author name.

Ex: Herman reported that having almonds help to gain control over diabetes (28)

In this example, Herman is the name of the author and 28 is the page number of the book in which the above mentioned details can be found.

As can be seen from the above example, complete details of the reference work are not given in the text. Complete details of the work are given in the works cited list at the end of the paper.

As per MLA citing style, the works cited list should start in a new page. Give the heading “Bibliography” for the page. Now, make a list of all the source materials used in the text. Sort them alphabetically. The general order used for giving the entries in the bibliography is the author, title of the book, city of publication, publisher and the year. In all the entries, title of the book should be underlined. Sometimes, it is possible that you have cited different works of the same author. In such cases, the author name is given only for the first entry. For other entries, three hyphens followed by a period and space should be given. These entries denote the author names given in the preceding entry.

All the above rules of MLA citing should be followed to make the document easy to read and unique from other styles of writing.

Every research paper must include a bibliography at the end. Bibliography provides information about the sources that have been used in composing the paper. Writing a bibliography in one particular format makes it easy to read and understand. The two common styles used for writing a bibliography include the MLA style and the APA style. This article presents information about the APA bibliography format.

Papers related to social sciences use APA style for presenting the bibliography.

List of APA citation rules to be followed:

APA Rule 1:

Start the bibliography after completing the entire research paper. Always start the bibliography in new page. Before giving the list of references, include a title “References” and center it.

APA Rule 2:

APA bibliography format demands you to alphabetize all the listings. Alphabetical listing is done on the basis of the author’s last name. Each and every letter is used during the ordering. For example, if you have two authors with last name as Martin and Marsh then Marsh would come first followed by Martin. If the author name is missing for any particular entry then order it using the title. However, ignore common words such as An, A and The.

APA Rule 3:

If any listing is more than one line, indent the second line about half inch from the first line. Remember to start the first line at the beginning of the left border. General order used for giving any listing in the APA bibliography is the author last name, initial, date of publication, title of the work, any additional information, place of publication and lastly the name of the publishing company.

APA  Rule 4:

While using APA bibliography format, one has to be very careful about capitalization of letters. Only the first word of a title and subtitle should be capitalized as per the APA style rules. The title should be given in italics. If you are writing with hand, the title should be underlined.

APA Rule 5:

Punctuations should be used very carefully in APA style. It is strictly prohibited to use quotations for quoting smaller works within the larger works. If more than one author is associated with a particular work, they have to be separated by a comma and an ampersand sign (&) have to be used before giving the last name. In case of more than six authors, only the first author name is stated and the word et al. is used for rest of the authors. In APA bibliography format date of publication of the work should be given in parenthesis and a period should be placed after closing the parenthesis.

Here is a very simple example that presents all the five rules stated above.

Nicholas, P.T., & Mary, D. (2006). A simple diet guide. Washington, DC: American Press.

Here Nicholas is the last name of the author; P and T are the initials. It can be seen that the last name and initials are separated by comma. Mary is the second author separated from the first author with &. The author name is immediately followed by year of publication and is enclosed in parenthesis. The name of the work “A simple diet guide” is given in italics with only the first word capitalized. The place of publication and the publishing company are separated by a colon.

The above five rules are used for quoting books in APA bibliography format.