Identify Plagiarism

Monica is overwhelmed by the amount of work required for her classes.

She has a paper due tomorrow, and she has found an article that supports the argument of her paper topic.

To save time, she copies and pastes large sections of the article into her paper without proper citation and without quotations.

• Yes, this is plagiarism.

• No, this is not plagiarism.

Answer explanation

Yes, this is direct plagiarism. Monica is trying to pass off the copied and pasted portions as her own work, which is direct plagiarism.

Greg has almost completed his essay for English.

He needs to write 250 more words to meet the length requirement.

He finds a lengthy paragraph from the book and puts it into his essay. He does not cite the book, but he puts the paragraph in quotation marks.

• Yes, this is plagiarism.

• No, this is not plagiarism.

Answer explanation

Yes, this is direct plagiarism. Putting the work of others in quotation marks is not enough- the original source must be cited properly.

Nathan’s teacher recommended an article to the class about poverty.

In his research paper, Nathan takes a quote from the article and switches the phrases around so it looks different from the original.

He does not use quotation marks, but he cites the article correctly.

• Yes, this is plagiarism.

• No, this is not plagiarism.

Answer explanation

Yes, this is mosaic plagiarism. Because Nathan did not use quotation marks, we cannot identify what has been taken directly from the source and what was added by Nathan.

This semester, Jessica’s teacher asks the class to write a paper about ethics in medicine.

Jessica wrote a similar paper last semester about religion in medicine.

She copies and pastes portions of her previous paper into this semester’s assignment.

• Yes, this is plagiarism.

• No, this is not plagiarism.

Answer explanation

Yes, this is self plagiarism. By submitting a work that was originally written for another class, Jessica has defeated the purpose of the current assignment.

While researching on the Internet, Amy comes across and interesting and relevant article. The article doesn’t name an author, so she doesn’t cite the ideas she takes from it.

She figures that if there is no author, then the information is considered common knowledge.

• Yes, this is plagiarism.

• No, this is not plagiarism.

Answer explanation

Yes, this is accidental plagiarism. It does not matter if a source gives credit to an individual as an author or not. The source should still be cited.

As Katie is preparing to write an assignment by doing some preliminary research, she finds some articles online related to her topic and reads them for inspiration.

When she sits down to write the assignment a few days later, she’s not sure if the ideas she’s writing about are hers or something she read the other day.

• Yes, this is plagiarism.

• No, this is not plagiarism.

Answer explanation

This is most likely accidental plagiarism. While it’s possible that the ideas Katie is writing about are her own, it’s also highly likely that some are from the articles she read previously.

Lisa is working on a research paper and wants to use a chart that will illustrate her argument.

She finds a suitable example and includes it in her paper. She does not cite it.

• Yes, this is plagiarism.

• No, this is not plagiarism.

Answer explanation

Yes, this is direct plagiarism. Even if you are not using someone’s words, you are still using their ideas. Charts, photos, and graphs still need to be cited if they are not your own.

Christi is writing a research paper about teaching strategies. She reads a source and finds a quote that supports her argument.

She then paraphrases that quote in her paper and does not cite it.

• Yes, this is plagiarism.

• No, this is not plagiarism.

Answer explanation

Yes, this is accidental plagiarism. Even if Christi correctly paraphrased or summarized the source, the idea was still not her own.