The Problem of Plagiarism

Plagiarism is bad.

That seems like a really obvious thing to say, but it is.

Plagiarism still happens.

That is a really sad thing to write, but it's still true.

Plagiarism is something that plays a large part in my life. As a History and English double major, I have to be even more careful than the average student in making sure that everything I write has been checked, double checked, and often triple checked for citation accuracy. Fear of plagiarism can keep me up at night sometimes, especially when I have multiple papers going at the same time.

Plagiarism is, according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, "the act of using another person's words or ideas without giving credit to that person." This may seem easy to avoid, and, most of the time, it is.

Just last week, I received a lecture about plagiarism in one of my classes. My French Revolution professor handed out a sheet on plagiarism, informing us about her past experiences with plagiarism in papers as a professor. In order to prevent them from happening again, she hands out information on it and discusses it for a lengthy amount of time in class. We have to sign a sheet testifying that we have learned what plagiarism is and hand it in the day of the lecture. When we turn in our final drafts, we have to turn in an additional sheet, with our signatures, our paper titles, and the date, acknowledging, once again, that we understand that, if we have plagiarized any of the papers, at least we know what we have done.

We don't take plagiarism as a joke. (I would like to point out here that my professor did mention - in jest, mind you - that we sign our contracts in blood, and then followed up the plagiarism discussion with a documentary on the history of the guillotine. It is a class on the French Revolution, after all).

It can be easily avoided, though.

A handy rule of thumb which has saved me many times: when in doubt, cite it. Better to over cite, and cite something that didn't need citations, than to not cite it, and be pulled before a board or lose your place at the school for plagiarism.

Most things that are common knowledge do not need to be cited. That typically applies to names, dates, locations - that sort of thing. But if you only find it in one source, or if you're paraphrasing or taking a direct quote from an author, then it definitely has to be cited. This is the Purdue OWL's guide to avoiding plagiarism, which most likely explains the rules better than I ever could.