LibGuides: First Year Experience: Plagiarism

The Honor Code

When you enter LaGrange College as a Freshman, you formally sign the LaGrange College Honor Code. In doing so, you promise to abide by the statutes of the honor code and "to be honest and truthful in all academic matters" (LC Honor Code, pg 4). This includes refraining from any and all misuses of another person's work or receiving unauthorized help on an assignment, among other offenses. If you plagiarize another person's work or witness another student plagiarizing another person's work without reporting the offense, you may be brought before the honor council who can then impose sanctions against the offending student(s).

What is it?

To put it simply, plagiarism is misusing someone's original work by copying, re-using, or otherwise presenting the work as one's own regardless of one's intent.

What forms does plagiarism take?

Some forms of plagiarism are:

Directly quoting from another person's work without giving credit to the original author.
Paraphrasing another person's work or ideas without giving credit to the original author
Having someone write a part or all of your papers for you
Writing a paper or a part of a paper for someone else
Heavily editing someone's paper to where ideas and wording no longer are the author's original ideas and content or having someone heavily edit your paper in the same manner.

Tips

Here are some tips for avoiding accidental (or maybe even purposeful?) plagiarism!

Always double, triple, quadruple check your in-text citations and those on your references or works cited page! Make sure all information is correct and in the correct place!
If in doubt whether something needs to be cited, cite it anyway or ask your professor! Better safe than sorry!
Professors have seen all forms of plagiarism before, and can spot it from a mile away. It's never worth it to plagiarize!
Always use quotations marks if it is a direct quote to avoid any confusion. No quotation marks are needed if you have paraphrased the quote, but you must ALWAYS cite both direct and in-direct quotes!

Need more info on how to cite those quotes correctly to avoid any plagiarism?

Here are some links to the Purdue Owl website which can provide a quick overview on how to style those works cited, reference, and bibliography pages and create accurate in-text citations. Purdue Owl only provides information for those looking to use MLA, APA, and Chicago Manual styles and only gives a general overview of each.