APA 7th Edition Citation Guide

The MLA Handbook 8th Edition defines plagiarism as the act of "presenting another person's ideas, information, expressions, or entire work as one's own" (6).  If you use any part of another person's work in your own writing without properly citing it, this constitutes plagiarism, regardless of if the lack of citation was intentional or accidental.

Plagiarism is a serious academic offense. PTCC's Academic Honesty Policy outlines punishments for plagiarism up to and including expulsion.  Don't let plagiarism happen to you!  Familiarize yourself with the common types of plagiarism and some ways to avoid them.

• Direct Plagiarism: When you either copy a passage from another source word for word without citing it, paraphrase a source without citing it, or turn in an entire essay not written by you as your own work.
• Self-Plagiarism: When you use an essay that you wrote for a previous class to satisfy requirements for a different class.
• Mosaic/Patchwork Plagiarism: Often unintentional, mosaic or patchwork plagiarism involves rearranging pieces of many different sources into a work of your own without properly citing the sources.
• Accidental Plagiarism:  Occurs when you unintentionally neglect to cite a source, attribute it improperly, or improperly paraphrase or summarize it. 

• Master the Art of Citing Sources with Quotation, Paraphrase and Summary: Knowing how to properly integrate other sources into your own will ensure that you do not commit accidental plagiarism.
• Keep Track of Your Sources: Keep a running bibliography of the sources you will use in your essay so that you can easily refer back to them when writing.
• Practice Proper Note-Taking: For each source you are using, be sure to clearly distinguish in your notes between which ideas are your own and which are ideas original to your source.
• Follow Citation Guidelines: Be sure you are formatting your citations correctly.
• If in Doubt, Cite!