Research Tools

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    Avoiding Plagiarism

    Giving credit to others for the words, facts, and ideas you borrow from them
    for your own writing is vital to honest writing. Not giving credit is a form
    of stealing called plagiarism.

    The sites below can help you understand what plagiarism is and how to avoid it.

    Student Guide to Avoiding Plagiarism - Education World's handout explains how to take notes and how to write to avoid plagiarizing.

    Avoiding Plagiarism - OWL's guide to when and how to give credit to others.

    When to Give Credit - UCLA Library's guide to plagiarism and citations

    Understanding Plagiarism - Prentice Hall's tutorial on avoiding plagiarism, including an online Q & A.

     

    Making Bibliography Citations

    Giving credit to your sources is a very important part of avoiding plagiarism. Part of giving credit includes listing the books, web sites, magazines and other types of resources that you used in collecting information.

    Info Form- You can print this page that helps you gather the correct book or web site information for your bibliographies.
    MLA Format Chart - examples of bibliography formats for books, web sites, newspapers, etc.

    These sites will format your bibliography entries for you:

    Slate Citation Machine

    Choose MLA from the list on the left, and then pick the type of resource you used from the list that appears. Just fill in the boxes, and this site will format the information for you. Then just cut and paste to your bibliography document.

    Remember to alphabetize and reverse indent!

    Easy Bib

    This site will also format your bibliography - again, just choose the type of resource from the list and fill in the boxes that show up.

    Citations in text (also knows as parenthetical notes)

    The most common way to give credit in your writing is to use parenthetical notes (citations in text) to tell your readers about the source of your information. As you quote or paraphrase a source, you list information about the source in the same section of your writing.

    The site below provides rules and examples for making in-text citations (parenthetical notes).

    Parenthetical notes - rules and examples for print & electronic

     

    Rules for Note Cards

    What should note cards look like? Below are links to a series of pictures that explain how to make note cards. The first time you look at these pictures, you should follow them in order. Later, you can come back and review the parts you have questions about.

    1. Creating a note card -Steps 1, 2 & 3

    2. The note card's appearance

    3. Taking notes - Rules 1, 2 & 3

    4. Examples

    5. Reminders- Part 1

    6. Reminders - Part 2