Library at UCC: Citation and Style Guides: Academic Integrity and Avoiding Plagiarism

Academic Integrity Policy: Union County College

Union County College's Academic Integrity Policy

The College's complete statement on Academic Integrity is contained in the 2021- 2022 Student Handbook (pages 18 - 19).

The following is extracted from it:

There is the expectation that students will present as their own work only that which they have done themselves. The College does not tolerate academic dishonesty, including plagiarizing (the act of representing someone else’s ideas as your own) and cheating by any means during a test, an examination or in any work intended to be done independently.

Union County College takes violations of academic integrity seriously. Procedures, actions, appeals are outlined in the 2021 - 2022 Student Handbook (pages 18 - 20).

Avoiding Plagiarism

Avoiding Plagiarism by Citing Your Sources

Ideas in words, ideas, pictures, interview, conversations, etc. created by someone else that are presented by you (in any format), need to be documented. Once you take this idea and present it in any medium, be it print, video, audio, etc. you will need to document the source. An exception would be “common knowledge,” meaning something known by most people.

There are usually three ways to present someone else’s original work in your written paper:

Quoting
A quotation must use the exact words of the source. If the quotation is relatively short (usually fewer than 3 lines or 40 words), those words must be enclosed in quotation marks, with the creator’s information in parentheses ( ), usually at the end of the statement. Longer passages need block quotations.
Paraphrasing
By using different wording, but still presenting the same idea, a paraphrase may be created. Usually paraphrasing is used to make the idea more succinct, using fewer words, or to clarify the original concept. Just changing a couple of words in not acceptable paraphrasing.
Summarizing
Giving the major points of a concept in a briefer format is summarizing. Many of the details are left out, but the main ideas remain.

More about these strategies can be found at “Quoting, Paraphrasing, and Summarizing” in Purdue University’s Online Writing Lab.

Interactive Plagiarism Tutorial

This tutorial will help you avoid plagiarism by providing examples that explain how to properly include information from other sources in one’s own scholarly work .