The Rise and Fall of Ancient Civilizations
Some Guidelines on Paraphrasing, Citing,
and Avoiding PlagiarismGeoff and Karen Conrad
Revised March 1999
Proper use of citations when you quote or paraphrase someone else’s work helps you to avoid plagiarism or being suspected of plagiarism. Many beginning students are not aware that plagiarism does not consist only of copying someone else’s exact words without attribution. Copying somebody else’s ideas without attribution is plagiarism too.
This handout is meant to help you understand what does and does not constitute plagiarism. It gives a passage from a book and shows you how to cite the passage. Next come several examples of ways you might use information from the passage that would be plagiarism, and finally several examples of ways you might use information that would not be plagiarism.
Please bear in mind that many more examples could be provided, and that some of them would be far less clear-cut than the ones here. As you become more expert in a subject, you will develop a better sense of what needs to be cited and what doesn’t. Nonetheless, there will always be gray areas; they shrink but never disappear. To be safe, follow a simple rule: WHEN IN DOUBT, CITE.
Original Passage and Citation
The meetings between Marx and Engels in Paris in August, 1844, and Brussels in
April, 1845, inaugurated a partnership that continued unbroken to Marx’s death nearly
forty years after. Indeed, it continued beyond that time, for Engels devoted his final
years to carrying forward the work on which he and his friend had been engaged together
for so long. Intellectual history offers few if any comparable examples of lifelong
collaboration between innovative minds. How shall we assess the relative weight
of their contributions?...Marxism as a transformed Hegelianism, a theory of history
in the grand style, was essentially, as we have seen, Marx’s creation. He was the seer
and system-builder in relation to whom the merely talented Engels was bound to play a
subordinate part (Tucker 1978:xxxvii).This is a relatively long passage (more than 3 or 4 lines), so we have identified it as a direct quotation by setting it apart as a separate block of text, indenting each line. (The ellipsis [...] shows where we have omitted some material.) Shorter passages are normally identified as direct quotations by putting them inside quotation marks. Preference as to when to use quotation marks and when to use block indenting varies; for specific advice ask your instructor.
The form of citation--(Tucker 1978:xxxvii); (author’s last name date of publication:page number)--is a standard one in anthropological writing. It refers your reader to an entry in your bibliography that might be written as follows:
Tucker, Robert C.
1978 Introduction. In The Marx-Engels Reader, Second Edition, edited by Robert C. Tucker, pp. xix-xlii. New York: W.W. Norton & Company.Again, there are various bibliographic formats; for specific advice ask your instructor.
Now that you know how to cite a quotation correctly, let’s move on to the dirty deed...
If you write the following and don’t cite the source, you are plagiarizing:
1. When Marx and Engels met, they inaugurated a partnership that
continued unbroken to Marx’s death nearly forty years after.This one is easy. You have lifted almost all of your sentence from Tucker’s passage,
word for word. You need to use quotation marks and cite the source.CORRECT: When Marx and Engels met, they “inaugurated a partnership that continued unbroken to
Marx’s death nearly forty years after” (Tucker 1978:xxxvii).
2. As a way of interpreting the history of the world, Marxism is transformed
Hegelianism.A little less obvious, perhaps, but still cut and dried. You have lifted only two words from Tucker.
Nonetheless, they’re the two key words in your sentence--they express the central idea of the
sentence--and neither the words nor the idea are yours. You need to put those words in quotation
marks and cite the source.CORRECT: As a way of interpreting the history of the world, Marxism is “transformed
Hegelianism” (Tucker 1978:xxxvii).
3. In a rare example of long-time collaboration between original thinkers, Engels
continued to elaborate their work after Marx died.Maybe this one seems all right to you, but it isn’t. You’ve taken two of Tucker’s sentences
(“Indeed, it continued...innovative minds.”), reversed their order, and rewritten them. You
haven’t used any of Tucker’s words, have you? No, but you’ve taken the exact substance
of Tucker’s idea and simply expressed it in different words. If you don’t cite, you’re
presenting Tucker’s idea as your own, and that’s plagiarism. Cite.CORRECT: In a rare example of long-time collaboration between original thinkers,
Engels continued to elaborate their work after Marx died (Tucker 1978:xxxvii).
4. Marx and Engels worked together for nearly 40 years, but Marx was always
the intellectually dominant partner.A more extreme version of the previous example. You’ve taken the entire passage and
compressed it into a single sentence that expresses the central idea. However, it’s still
Tucker’s idea, not yours. Cite him.CORRECT: Marx and Engels worked together for nearly 40 years,
but Marx was always the intellectually dominant partner (Tucker 1978:xxxvii).
Now for the good news. You don’t have to cite everything. A paper with citations after every sentence or every phrase is unreadable. You may need to cite frequently, but not constantly. There’s information you can get from Tucker without citing him...
If you write the following sentences without citation, you are NOT plagiarizing:
1. Marx and Engels worked together to develop the theory of history that is now
called “Marxism.”Yes, Tucker says that Marx and Engels worked together, but it isn’t an original idea of his.
That Marx and Engels collaborated is an established fact--common knowledge, if you will.
You can find it in any number of sources, including Marx’s and Engels’s own writings, and
nobody is going to question it if you say it. Tucker doesn’t cite anybody to prove what he
assumes any educated reader already knows, and you don’t need to cite him.
2. Marx was 26 years old when he first met Engels in 1844.
You must have figured this out for yourself by looking up the date of Marx’s birth, which
is a matter of public record. What you got from Tucker was the fact that Marx first met
Engels in 1844. However, that is an established fact that is regraded as common intellectual
property, and you don’t need to cite a source. One clue to this is that Tucker himself treats it as
an established, widely accepted fact and doesn’t cite any sources to prove that Marx and Engels first met in 1844.
3. What is the role of collaboration in intellectual history? Marx and Engels
provide one example.You are asking a much broader question than Tucker, who is concerned only with Marx
and Engels. Again, what you’re getting from Tucker is the well known fact that Marx
and Engels collaborated. The phrase “intellectual history” appears in both Tucker’s writing and
yours, but it is a common phrase and not original with Tucker. You don’t need to cite him. (Note
that you would need to cite Tucker if you went on to discuss his analysis of the Marx-Engels collaboration.)
4. The recent history of Eastern Europe leads me to conclude that much of the
theory Marx and Engels developed _________________.
[FILL IN THE BLANK: “was based on a fundamental misunderstanding of human nature,”
“has been applied incorrectly in political practice,” “is wrong,” “is still misunderstood,” or whatever your conclusion is.]You are stating your opinion. Again, all you’ve taken from Tucker is the well known fact that
Marx and Engels collaborated in the development of Marxism, and you don’t need to cite him.
In closing, we want to repeat that in some cases what you can or can’t say without plagiarizing may be unclear to you. In those cases, either cite your source or consult with your instructor BEFORE you hand in the final version of your paper.
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Last updated: 18 February 2000
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