It's Not A Game! Avoiding Unintentional Plagiarism

If you’re ever played board games with your family or friends, maybe you have dealt with someone who cheats at them. Growing up, my older sister made cheating at board games a science—each time I would catch her in the act, she would find a new way to cheat next time. These board game shenanigans meant that playing detective with her cheating was more of the actual game we were playing. I’m still waiting for the board game police to show up.

Unlike cheating at board games, though, there are consequences to academic dishonesty such as plagiarism. Intentional plagiarism is a fairly cut and dry to understand. When plagiarism occurs, though, it is often unintentional plagiarism. Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t carry the same academic consequences. This isn’t meant to scare you, though, as there are some fairly easy ways to avoid accidental plagiarism. In this blog post, I want to discuss two main tips for avoiding plagiarism: correctly citing each sentence that provides information from a source and correctly paraphrasing points from a source. 

Citing Correctly

If you have had a paper review with one of our Walden University Writing Instructors, maybe your instructor pointed out to you the need to cite each sentence that provides information from a source, and you wondered, why? For instance, maybe you cited at the end of a paragraph or cited every other sentence because you were citing the same source throughout the paragraph. The issue is that each point that comes from a source is not attributed to a source, so those un-cited sentences suggest to readers that they are your own ideas when they are actually coming from a source. Both not attributing ideas to a source and falsely attributing ideas from a source as your own and are forms of plagiarism.

Correct citation also refers to ensuring direct quotes are properly formatted. For instance, when a direct quote is included, the page number where the quote was found would be included (as “p. xx”). For sources with no page numbers, the paragraph number would be included (as “para. xx”).  As well, quote marks need to be included around the quoted material, otherwise, readers will assume that the information is a paraphrase. Presenting quoted material as a paraphrase is a form of plagiarism.

To avoid plagiarism, then, it is important to correctly cite by: 1) ensuring each sentence that provides information from a source is cited so that information is correctly attributed to the source and not falsely attributed to you, and 2) ensuring direct quotes are correctly formatted so the information is not presented as your paraphrase of that information or point. 

Paraphrasing Correctly 

Paraphrasing is usually better than quoting since paraphrasing demonstrates a writer’s command of the material and direct quotes, especially long ones, can disrupt the flow of points since they are in a different voice from the author. With this in mind, while incorrectly presenting a direct quote as a paraphrase is problematic, so is incorrectly paraphrasing a source. One way a source might be incorrectly paraphrased is through patchwork paraphrasing which largely means that some of the original source’s wording is used. For instance, the paraphrase may change a word here and there, or move around some of the wording of the original source. In this sense, it would be similar to including a sentence that is a direct quote from a source but presenting that direct quote as a paraphrase—the original author’s words are presented as your own. While not as egregious as not citing at all, ineffective paraphrasing can still be considered to be a form of plagiarism.

So, to avoid plagiarism, it is important to paraphrase effectively. Paraphrasing effectively means that 1) the paraphrase stays true to the original sources’ meaning, and 2) the paraphrase is in different wording, and has a different sentence structure, then the original.

I know this seems like a lot of information, but as I noted in the beginning, the main tips for avoiding plagiarism include correctly citing each sentence that provides information from a source, or needs to be supported by a source, and correctly paraphrasing. Plagiarism can be a scary word, but it doesn’t have to be if you are informed about how to avoid it. 

Students can find Walden’s general policy for academic integrity in the Handbook's Academic Integrity section under Code of Conduct. While the Writing Center is not involved with any program-specific or overall university guidance, we do have sources on citing and avoiding plagiarism. For instance, we have a page on how to cite and how often, a plagiarism prevention checklist, plagiarism prevention modules, and a plagiarism prevention webinar. 

Have any questions about avoiding accidental plagiarism? Have any tips you use to avoid accidental plagiarism? Let us know! 

Veronica Oliver is a Writing Instructor in the Walden Writing Center. In her spare time she writes fiction, binge watches Netflix, and occasionally makes it to a 6am Bikram Yoga class.

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