Five tips for avoiding plagiarism
- Use your own ideas. It should be your paper and your ideas should be the focus.
- Use the ideas of others sparingly--only to support or reinforce your own argument.
- Use quotation marks when directly stating another person's words.
- A good strategy is to read and analyze supporting ideas, then "close" the book/article and write a summary of the points you plan to use.
- When taking notes, include complete citation information for each item you use.