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ECON 3700 - Writing as an Economist (Spring 2024): Avoid Plagiarism

What is Plagiarism?

When you want to use the ideas and words of others to strengthen the points that you are making in your own writing, you must indicate this to your reader. Referencing appropriately whenever you use someone else's work to support yours.

Plagiarism is when you present someone else's work or ideas as your own, and it can be accidental or intentional. Students, academics and business people who are caught plagiarizing, face serious consequences such as failure, dismissal and legal action.

Plagiarism can be:

  • Copying someone's words without giving them credit;
  • Using someone's ideas or concepts without giving them credit;
  • Misrepresenting someone's ideas or concepts;
  • Copying images or music without permission or without proper attribution;
  • Citing incorrectly by citing the wrong source or having incomplete or inaccurate citations;
  • Failing to acknowledge the contribution of others in work produced collaboratively.

Watch this video from York St. John University for more information about plagiarism.

Take a look at the webpage Integrate Sources into Your Paper for more guidance.

Relevant Books

How to Avoid Plagiarism?

There are two ways to help you avoid plagiarism:

Paraphrase

Direct Quote 

What is it  

Take the words of another source and rewrite / restate them in your own words.

Quote another person’s words without any change.

When to use it  

When you need to refer to others' ideas in the sources. It's more commonly used.

Paraphrasing allows you to fit material to the context of your paper and writing style.

Mainly for giving a definition, theory, specific term, or a powerful statement.

⚠️ Too many quotes may affect the originality of your work! 

Format in APA 7th style  


Paraphrased sentence + Citation

For short quotations (under 40 words): 

"Direct quotes"  + Citation (indicate page number)

Examples  

Parenthetical citation:

Effective teams can be difficult to describe because the team's specialties can differ and largely influence the performance of the teamwork (Ervin et al., 2018).


 Narrative citation:

Ervin et al. (2018) noted that effective teams can be difficult to describe because the team's specialties can differ and largely influence the performance of the teamwork.

Parenthetical citation:

Effective teams can be difficult to describe because high performance along one domain does not translate to high performance along another (Ervin et al., 2018, p. 470).


Narrative citation:

Ervin et al. (2018) noted that effective teams can be difficult to describe because high performance along one domain does not translate to high performance along another (p. 470).

Online Tools for Better Academic Writing

These tools can help you learn paraphrasing:

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