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How to Recognize Plagiarism

Examples

Word for Word | Paraphrasing

Example 4 of 5

A word-for-word example of plagiarism is one in which the writer directly quotes a passage or passages from an author's work without the use of proper quotation marks.

Read the example carefully!

Original Source Material: Theories differ from philosophies and models of teaching. A philosophy is a value system, whereas a theory seeks to explain real-world events and can be certified through scientific investigation. Models of teaching are approaches to the management of some aspect of classroom instruction and they may not be independent of subject area, grade level, age of the student, or the setting for learning. A characteristic of learning theories is that they address the underlying psychological dynamics of events. Thus, they provide a mechanism for understanding the implications of events related to learning in both formal and informal settings.

Source: Gredler, M. E. (2001). Learning and instruction: Theory into practice (4th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

Plagiarized Version Correct Version

Theories and philosophies are different from each other because theories seek to explain real-world events and can be certified through scientific investigation. Learning theories address the underlying psychological dynamics of events, so they provide a mechanism for understanding the implications of events related to learning in both formal and informal settings.

Theories and philosophies are different from each other because, according to Gredler (2001) theories seek

to explain real-world events and can be certified through scientific investigation... A characteristic of learning theories is that they address the underlying psychological dynamics of events. Thus, they provide a mechanism for understanding the implications of events related to learning in both formal and informal settings. (pp. 12-13)

References: Gredler, M. E. (2001). Learning and instruction: Theory into practice (4th Ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

Explanation: This example of student written work is plagiarized. The student used several passages from the original work and inserted them into original prose, however this is still an example of word-for-word plagiarism. No credit was given to the author in the text and quotation marks were not used, and also the work was not listed in the references.

Explanation: An indented block is used to indicate that this passage is a word-for-word quotation and the pages where it was taken from the original document. The original author of the content is cited at the end of the passage and in the reference section as well.

Examples 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5