How can you avoid plagiarism?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

• Copying sentences, paragraphs, or pages from a source without indicating the source: Never use someone else's written work without giving credit to that original author or authors. Do not copy down definitions from encyclopedias or dictionaries without saying where the definition is from.
• Copying sentences or more from a source without including proper quotation marks, page references, or indentation even when the proper citation is provided. When a quoted section is five lines or less, you encapsulate it between quotation marks. Following the quoted section, you cite, in text, the name of the author, the date of the publication, and the page reference where the original work appears. If you are quoting more than five lines of text, you should indent the passage on both sides—but without quotation marks. It is one of the other, not both—either indent or use quotation marks. Following the indented passage, the citation is enclosed in brackets. The citation should include the name of the author or authors, the date of the publication, and the page reference where the original passage appears. If you take other people's ideas without giving credit, you damage your own credibility. If you give credit to others, you gain credibility as honest and well read. Researchers are expected to build upon the work of others rather than build out of thin air.
• Paraphrasing sentences without providing the proper citation of the original source. If you take another author's ideas, you need to reference that author. In research, citing someone else properly is more about giving him or her credit for his or her ideas than for his or her particular choice of words. This is prefaced by "According to Jim Jones…etc." Then the following material can be paraphrased, but if the main points are lifted from the original version, it is proper to cite these original authors. It is a good way to support the documentation you are writing as well.
• False paraphrasing (changing one or two words) in sentences, and failing to provide the proper citation of the original source. Instead of stealing material, you can simply add the author's name to cite whom the work is from. Since it is not a direct quote, the words do not need to be enclosed in quotations.