Is it plagiarism? #2

What is a Quotation?

A quote is when you use someone else's exact words in your assignment. Pretty much any time you copy and paste text from the internet, copy something out of a book word-for-word, or write down exactly what someone said out loud.

Why would I use a quotation in my assignment?

Quotations can be really useful to use as evidence for an assignment. It might be using a passage from the book you have read for English: The author clearly wants us to feel sympathy for the character during the scene when she wrote "....." (p. 28).
You might also want to use a quote to prove your point in a Humanities report: According to the the United States Holocaust Museum "...."
The same approaches can be used for any of your subjects.

How do I use a quote in my assignment without plagarising?

Quotations are easy - all you need to do is use quotation marks around them to show that they are a direct quote.
Once you hit year 9, you are also encouraged to indicate where the quote came from. The easiest way of doing this is to put the author's surname and date of publication in brackets after the quote:

"To be, or not to be: that is the question" (Shakespeare, 1609)

That way your teacher can flick to your bibliography and find the rest of the information pointing to where you found your quote.

What is a citation?

Are your teachers talking about citations? bibliographies? referencing? Not sure what it is all about? Not sure why you need to do it? This quick video might help to explain what it is all about.

Our school subscribes to the SASLA Online Generator which will help you make citations easily. Check out the ILC homepage for a link.

Is it plagiarism? #1

When do I need to Reference?

It can feel really hard to know when you need to reference something, and when it is ok leave it as it is. Here is a quick guide to let you know when you need to acknowledge someone else's work:

Plagiarism & how to avoid it

Plagiarism is when you take someone else's idea and pretend it is your own. Some examples of plagiarism are:

• Handing in an assignment that someone else wrote.
• Copying and pasting from another source (like a website) without giving credit to the original source.
• Not using quotation marks when you use someone's exact words.
• Changing only one or two words in a sentence, but pretty much leaving the sentence the way it was, and not giving credit to the original source (for tips of paraphrasing so it is not plagiarism check this website: http://www.plagiarism.org/citing-sources/how-to-paraphrase/).
• Providing incorrect information about where you got information from (especially if you make it up).
• Copying so many words or ideas that you didn't really write much of your assignment at all.

(Adapted from: http://www.plagiarism.org/plagiarism-101/what-is-plagiarism/)

For more information check out: http://www.plagiarism.org/, or come and talk to the Librarians, we are very happy to help you avoid plagiarism!