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Plagiarism Defined

According to the Merriam Webster Online Dictionary, to plagiarize is:

1. to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one's own; use (another's production) without crediting the source

2. to commit literary theft; present as new and original an idea or product derived from an existing source

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Types of Plagiarism

There are four basic types of plagiarism: 

  • Direct Plagiarism: Word for word usage of another's work without citation or credit. and without quotations. 
  • Mosaic (Paraphrasing) Plagiarism: The act of borrowing passages from a source without using quotation marks even if the wording changed as long as the general idea stays the same.
  • Self Plagiarism: Using your own work or part of a previous work without citing that it was used previously.
  • Accidental Plagiarism: The unintentional paraphrasing of someone else's work, accidentally omitting a citation, or misquoting a source are all acts of accidental plagiarism. 

 

*Material found at Bowden University The Common Types of Plagiarism  and WriteCheck Self-Plagiarism. 

Examples of plagiarism using MLA style citation

Original Text:

“Perhaps the chief appeal that Marxism held for the Russian intelligentsia, even more so than for the intellectuals of other countries, was its combination of a powerful messianic yearning with an appearance of scientific methodology. It offered youthful enthusiasts the best of both worlds. Their ardent desire to change the world was fortified by sound, or seemingly sound, scientific reasons why this was not only possible, but was, even more seductively, inevitable” (Charmichael 17).

Charmichael, Joel. A short history of the Russian Revolution. Basic Books, Inc., 1964.

Paraphrasing of the text:

I believe that the combination of scientific methodology and a forceful messianic longing explains the appeal held by Russian intellectuals, as well as intellectuals from other countries, for Marxism. It offered the youth of the time the best of both worlds. Marxism seemed to show sound and scientific reasons that is was possible, even inevitable, that those youth’s would change the world. Given the opportunity to make things better, who wouldn’t? 

*This paragraph is clearly a paraphrase of the original text without any citation to show who wrote it or where it was found.

Direct Plagiarism:

In regards to the idea of Marxism, when it first appeared the chief appeal that Marxism held for the Russian intelligentsia was its combination of powerful messianic yearning and an appearance of scientific methodology. It could be stated that the youths desire to change the world was fortified by sound, or seemingly sound, scientific reasons why this was not only possible but inevitable.

Charmichael, Joel. A short history of the Russian Revolution. Basic Books, Inc., 1964.

*Although this example includes a citation, it does not include quotation marks around direct quotes, an ellipsis to show a shortened quote, or an in-text citation.