Plagiarism Tutorial

Paraphrasing is a necessity, but it can be dangerous if you don't know how to do it correctly. Since your paper should use direct quotations sparingly, you'll have room for several paraphrased passages. Just remember that you still need to express plenty of your own ideas in between. Use paraphrasing to support those ideas.

When paraphrasing:

• Read your source document carefully until you understand exactly what the author is saying.
• Check your paraphrase against the source for accuracy, and modify phrases that match the original too closely.
• If you must borrow a unique word or phrase, enclose it in quotation marks.
• Always indicate whose ideas you are paraphrasing,
  • by introducing the passage with an attribution (for example: According to Howard Gardner ...); or
  • by including their name in the parenthetical reference, footnote, or endnote reference directly after the paraphrase.

The next sections compare two versions of paraphrases taken from the same text.