Plagiarism, Bibliographies and Citations.
Plagiarism. It’s super bad, don’t do it!
Plagiarism is passing off somebody else’s words or ideas as your own.
Direct Quotations
If you’re taking a direct quotation from someone (a book, a website, a song lyric, an interview, etc.) you must put their words in quotation marks and indicate where and who it came from – see the section below on citations.
Paraphrasing
If you’re paraphrasing someone – building on their idea or thought but not using a direct, word for word quotation, you STILL must cite it.
When do you need to cite something? Here are some examples:
Sir John A. Macdonald was the first Prime Minister of Canada.
-This is common knowledge and does not need to be cited.Although documentation shows that Sir John A. Macdonald was born on January 10, 1815, he and his family celebrated his birthday on January 11.
-This is not common knowledge and needs to be cited :
“John A. Macdonald - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.” Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Jan. 2010. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki
Still not sure when you need to cite? Try the Acadia University Plagiarism Tutorial. This quick and easy tutorial will help you figure out when you need to include citations.
Bibliographies and Citations
There are different style guides for creating bibliographies and citing quotations. The two most common are MLA and APA. Your teachers will generally tell you which to use. The links below will help you to use either style guide.
- BibMe - An instant bibliography maker: just plug in the title or author and it does the rest.
- Son of Citation - Create bibliographies and citations in a variety of styles by filling in a web‑based form. Copy and paste into your document and you’re done.
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