ANU Library

Avoiding Plagiarism

Avoiding Plagiarism

Here are just a few tips on how to avoid plagiarism:

  • Understand how to correctly Paraphrase
  • Take notes
  • Document & cite
  • Understand how to use quotations
  • Don’t copy & paste
  • Use a bibliographic management software like Zotero, Mendalay, etc.
  • Always give credit!

Citations

What is a Citation?

A citation is a quote or a reference to a book, article, passage, or other text or author. It contains the basic information that is needed to find a specific document, including the document’s author, title, and publication information.

Citations are used to give credit to authors for original ideas and arguments. That means that whenever you make a reference to another document or use an argument from another author in your paper, you need to cite that document and give credit to the author for their ideas. The APA style requires two types of citations for each document that you include in your paper: an in-text citation, and a references page citation.

Citing Within the Text

Whenever you are citing information from an outside source in your writing (for example, information from a book or article that you used in your research), the APA style requires that an in-text citation be provided immediately after the source is referenced. These in-text citations require an author’s last name and the date of publication for the document, for example, (Smith, 2010).

Citation Management Tools

Did you know that there are tools out there that can help you keep track of your citations and references? By keeping track of your resources, you will be able to see what resources you have and what you are using.

  • Mendeley– A free reference manager and an academic social network. Search and sort all of your references, documents and notes in one palace. Store your research securely and access it easily across all your devices.
  • Zotero– Collects all your research in a single, searchable interface. It is the only research tools that automatically senses content in your web browser, allowing you to add it your personal Library with a single click. Zotero automatically indexes the full-text content of your library, enabling you to find exactly what you need.
  • EndNote Basic– Gives you the tools for learning how to do research, cite sources and write term papers. You can also integrate with Microsoft Word to properly cite and format your paper.

You can also use the Reference & Bibliography tab in Word to keep track of your citations and references when writing your assignment

Paraphrasing

What is paraphrasing? It is putting something into your own words, such as summarizing a book or an article. It is expressing an idea in your words rather than the authors words. Though you may be thinking “how I can say it better than he did?” Well, let’s take a look  at a few resources that can help you on the journey of learning how to paraphrase.

Reference List

Another way to avoid plagiarism is to keep a reference list. Keeping a list is extremely helpful in avoiding plagiarism. You will be able keep track of what sources you are using. Every time you decided to use a new sources, create a bibliographic citation for it in your reference list.

Using Quotations

Quotations are another way to prevent plagiarism. Quotations are taking a direct quote or phrase from a work and inserting it in your work using quotations. Check out the resources below to understand how to properly use quotations.