Avoiding plagiarism

Understanding plagiarism | Intentional and unintentional plagiarism | Consequences of plagiarism |
Taking notes and paraphrasing | Additional resources

The good news about understanding plagiarism is that the concept at heart is simple: we give credit to others for their ideas, and we give credit to others for their words.

"instead of showing what you don't know, citing your sources provides evidence of what you do know, and of the authority behind your knowledge."

UNC Writing Center Handout | Plagiarism

Giving credit for others' ideas

The author of Ecclesiastes, a book of the Old Testament, wrote, "there is nothing new under the sun" (1:9). Teachers love for students to be original, but they know that whatever spark from a student's mind creates an original thought, the ideas of others provided the fuel for that thought. Therefore, as the handout from the UNC Writing Center notes at left, there is no shame in citing the ideas of others--in fact, just the opposite.

For example, students who read criticism on a novel want their teachers to know that they have understood the criticism and are responding to it. Students who read about historical theories want their teachers to know that they are thinking about those theories. Students who read about scientific discoveries want their teachers to know that they are aware of those discoveries--and so on.

Giving credit for others' words

Just as we give credit for ideas, so too we give credit for words by enclosing them in quotation marks and indicating the source. However simple, it is never acceptable to cut and paste a passage (whether a few words or a paragraph or a page) and pretend it is our own work.

As Emerson's quotation at right indicates, a quotation can provide wonderful support. But rather than pretend we have written the quotation, we enclose it in quotation marks and acknowledge the source. In this way we are giving credit to the author and making others aware of his or her words.

"By necessity, by proclivity, and by delight, we all quote."

--Ralph Waldo Emerson (Bartleby.com)

Common knowledge

If it is clear that we need to give others credit for their ideas and their words, it is not always clear what we don't have to give credit for. People generally agree that there is no need to provide credit for facts that are common knowledge, but within the academic community there is some disagreement about what common knowledge is.

Most everyone agrees that common knowledge includes facts that virtually everyone knows: for example, that George Washington was the first President of the United States. Beyond those most elementary of facts, the picture is not so clear. Some teachers consider common knowledge what students knew before they entered a course; others consider common knowledge what everyone in a given class knows at a given time. And some teachers consider common knowledge any fact that a person could easily find in a variety of general reference works.

Baylor teachers agree with the final position: if we can easily find a fact in a variety of sources, then we can consider that fact common knowledge. A good rule of thumb is that we can consider as part of the body of common knowledge any fact that we find in three unrelated, reliable reference sources (not three places on the Internet copied from the same source).

Beyond this basic agreement, different disciplines have developed different conventions about common knowledge. To see the conventions that Baylor teachers expect students to follow, click on the links below.

English department

History department

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