Avoiding Plagiarism and Self-Plagiarism in Academic Writing

¶ … Avoiding Plagiarism and Self-Plagiarism in Academic Writing Plagiarism can be defined as "copying another's work or borrowing someone else's original ideas" without properly citing or crediting the source from which the information was sourced (What is Plagiarism?, n.d.). However, there are certain things an individual may do to prevent plagiarism and ensure that he or she is not accused of academic or intellectual dishonesty. In order to prevent plagiarism, one must first be able to recognize and be able to detect plagiarized material.

The below passage is demonstrative of plagiarized work and does not properly cite the source material it references. Consumers must trust that the research that has gone into the manufacture of new drugs is safe. But it is hard to know if a conflict of interest between doctors, researchers, and the drug company stockholders has tainted the results. Biomedical researchers incorporate strict rules of science into their work, which is examined by peers.

Yet the resulting information can be warped for five reasons: ending a study too soon, not publishing negative results, publishing results too early, skimming over or ignoring drawbacks, and "buffing" the results by showing them in the best light (Crossen, 1994, p. 167). With the exception of the last sentence, which is the only one that cites the original source, the entire passage has been plagiarized. The first two sentences should be combined into a single sentence, as should the third and fourth sentences.

Plagiarism in this section was detected in sentence structure and word choice of the writer. The writer did not paraphrase or introduce new ideas into the section and merely reworded the original source without giving it credit. In other cases, plagiarism can be detected when an individual neglects to cite the work from which they sourced their claims or information.

In order to reduce or eliminate plagiarism in this passage, these sentences could be rewritten and cited as follows: In Tainted: The Manipulation of Fact in America, Crossen (1994) posits that it is difficult to determine if there is a conflict of interest between doctors, researchers, and drug company stockholders that may contribute to tainted results and raise concerns about the validity of research used to determine if newly manufactured drugs are safe (p. 167).

Crossen (1994) continues, "No study is perfect, and problems arise in the labs of even the most conscientious and honest researchers," and that despite "rigorous scientific rules" and peer reviews, information and data can "nevertheless be warped" (p. 167). The resulting information can be warped for five reasons: ending a study too soon, not publishing negative results, publishing results too early, skimming over or ignoring drawbacks, and "buffing" the results by showing them in the best light (Crossen, 1994, p. 167).

In order to eliminate plagiarism in original essays and documents, the writer must make sure to cite the original source by giving credit to the author whose ideas the writer is referencing if and when they are paraphrasing what the author stated in the original source. If a writer is to restate an original source verbatim, they must use quotation marks, or the proper block formatting, followed by the source information.

In APA, sources are cited by author name -- if one is not given then the source is referenced by title; year published -- if none is given then n.d. is used; and finally page number, if one is.