Scientists and scholars build on the ideas and research of others. Such collaboration, as Isaac Newton observed, is part of the common culture of science. But originality is just as important in science, as reflected in the harsh academic code of publish or perish. Thus scientists and academics of all stripes are sticklers about drawing a clear line between what is original in one's work, and what is not. And since academics are the watchdogs and graders of student writing, it is critically important for students to learn what plagiarism is and why it's so dangerous.

Plagiarism can have catastrophic consequences for one's career as a student and even later on in life—and the higher one's ambition takes one, the higher the stakes. In 1987, for instance, Senator Joe Biden, who was seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, was accused of plagiarizing passages in speeches and interviews from the oratory of a British politician, Neil Kinnock. Here are some of the passages in question:

It turned out Biden had also borrowed passages from old campaign speeches by Robert Kennedy and had inflated his academic record. But oratory has a long tradition of borrowing and even "heavy lifting," as speechwriters call it, so Biden stayed alive in the presidential race. The last straw, however, came when it turned out that twenty years earlier Biden had received a failing grade in a law school course for plagiarizing a legal article (he'd given a single footnote while lifting five full pages from the article). Biden said he'd been unaware of the appropriate standards for legal briefs, but the public was unimpressed. His campaign collapsed and he withdrew from the race.

The lesson: be afraid of plagiarism. It creates paper-trail timebombs that can destroy a career you've spent decades building—especially today, when teachers routinely keep copies of papers and the Internet makes it a snap to compare texts and locate sources.

What is plagiarism?

The Random House dictionary defines plagiarism as "the unauthorized use or close imitation of the language and thoughts of another author and the representation of them as one's own original work." Imitation or borrowing by themselves are not plagiarism. Drawing on other people's ideas is perfectly reasonable and in fact unavoidable when you write academic essays—but you must acknowledge the borrowing.

You are obligated, as an ethical obligation to other writers and as a defense for yourself, to acknowledge all borrowings you take from other sources, even if you don't copy the exact words used in the original—even if you never actually quote the original. Plagiarism includes:

1. Quoting material without attribution. The most obvious kind of plagiarism.

2. Passing off another's idea as your own, even if it's been reworded. Changing an original's wording doesn't avoid plagiarism. The underlying idea of plagiarism is unacknowledged borrowing of ideas, not specific words.

3. Imitating a passage's structure or argument without attribution. Suppose a source presents an assertion and three supporting points. If you adopt that particular structure, including the particular examples or supporting points, you need to provide a citation to the original. This holds even if you substantially revise the wording.

4. Concealing the extent to which you've borrowed from a text or other source. Citing a specific passage in a work doesn't give you license to draw on the rest of the work without citation. This can be the nastiest kind of plagiarism because it's so sneaky.

Not everything needs a citation. Typically you don't need to cite familiar or widely available facts or common judgments:

But once you move beyond general statements, you need to be conscientious about citations:

It takes judgment to figure out what is "familiar" and "common" enough not to require citation. Students develop this judgment over time, as they learn more within particular fields. The simplest rule: When in doubt cite or ask.

Citation

Citation is the act of identifying sources. A citation names the author and work and provides sufficient bibliographic information to allow the reader to track down the original source. Sometimes students fall into plagiarism because they're not aware of the standards for scholarly citation. Here are some general guidelines for how to cite properly:

• Provide citations for direct quotations and paraphrases, for ideas, and for anything else you take from an original source, such as the structure of an argument.

• Don't skimp on research. Ending up with just a couple of works to cite generally is inadequate.

• If you draw a considerable number of references from an article or book, don't pretend that gathering them has been your own labor. Clarify what you've borrowed with a statement like Smith (1999) provides helpful references to this literature. Better yet, do the work of gathering citations yourself.

• Don't put a catch-all citation at the end of a paragraph. Cite as you use.

In general, as you do research and take notes, make sure to keep full bibliographic information notes. If you're sloppy at the start, you'll have no hope later on of reconstructing your citations.

For more specific formatting styles, see the upcoming sections on MLA, APA, Chicago, and CBE citation styles.

Plagiarism and the web

The Internet makes it easy for students to find research papers on the web. Papers can be found at both free and commercial sites, and lots of students are tempted to turn in completely pre-fabricated essays. Don't do this. Not only is it plagiarism, but it doesn't tend to work very well except as short-term crisis management. First of all, you don't learn much of value from the experience. Second, the papers are generally of low quality. Here's the judgment of one instructor who checked out several web sites offering college papers:

Teacher tip

If you suspect that a student paper has been obtained from the web, run a search on text, title, or keywords. Often it's easy to track down an online source. But the best way to reduce plagiarism problems is to require students to turn in intermediate drafts and notes of their research. Some teachers also require students to turn in with their final paper a portfolio containing notes, outlines, earlier drafts, and so on.

A final note on plagiarism: When you put your name on academic work and submit it, you are claiming ownership of the work. If through carelessness or design you've blurred the lines between what's yours and what you've taken from others, you are stealing intellectual property. Don't do it. Plagiarism is risky and counterproductive. It harms your intellectual and moral development. It leaves a permanent paper trail that can have devastating consequences, even years down the line. And, most of all, it's wrong.

  Next: Effective quoting