Can you plagiarize a biography

No, all you have to do is keep reading. Plagiarism is a serious offense and can result in expulsion from school. Always tell readers where you got your information if the facts aren't common knowledge.

Here is an idea how to do it. These mistakes, even when committed accidentally, are plagiarism.. The first information you should gather in your. But it's not the only form of plagiarism. Paraphrasing from a number of different sources without citing those sources.

Turning in work that you did for another class without getting your professor's permission first. Buying an essay or paper and turning it in as your own work. Here are some examples: Mentioning an author or source within your paper without including a full citation in your bibliography. Citing a source with inaccurate information, making it impossible to find that source. Using a direct quote from a source, citing that source, but failing to put quotation marks around the copied text.

Paraphrasing from multiple cited sources without including any original work. If you continue with this browser, you may see unexpected results. Search this Guide Search. Plagiarism Defined The word "plagiarism" is derived from the Latin root for "kidnapping"! Use exact wording or an exact phrase, and do not put it in quotes and cite it It is not coincidence that we have used the same few.

Misuse of Public Domain Material. Plagiarism can also infest our work when we use material in the public domain. It might be material whose copyright has expired.

It might be material of the Ohio type above: publications by a government agency, whose writings carry no personal rights because they were created by public servants and financed by public funding. Again, whether our use of public domain material constitutes plagiarism depends upon how we use it. The scope of the project does not call for original research.

Knowing that copyright does not apply, we paste the passage into the layout of our brochure, adding more specific text about the property adjacent to the battlefield:. Here, our quote from Sarah Stone casually identifies its source. In a tourist brochure, that informality can be acceptable. But our first paragraph commits an act of plagiarism. The fact that copyright does not apply to public-domain material does not mean that it is free for the taking, without acknowledgment.

One aspect of the U. At least one history instructor has found value in this research guide. No quotation marks appeared around any of the reproduced material. A general note at the bottom of the syllabus page stated:. Section of the Copyright Law sets forth four considerations that affect whether our reuse of copyrighted work is fair use:.

Judged by the third and fourth criteria, however, the reuse clearly violates the doctrine. The two-sided QuickSheet consists of four sections; the instructor reproduced two of them. The problem, however, goes beyond fair use. An act of plagiarism never falls under fair use.

Attribution, in all cases, requires a clear statement of authorship. This may be provided in some standard citation format, or it might be handled in a simple and to-the-point sentence. When material is directly quoted, attribution also means the use of quotation marks around all quoted matter.

That approach is an act of plagiarism. Patchworking is a form of plagiarism that seems to follow every letter of the law: the use of small amounts, the use of quotation marks, and the use of clear attribution.

Our task at hand, let us say, is a biographical sketch of a settler on the Kentucky frontier. For historical perspective, we have consulted every firsthand account by others of his time and place—as well as every monograph in which other historians have interpreted his society.

In this process, we have taken meticulous notes. We conscientiously follow both tenets of the Rule of Three: Any time we copy three or more words from a source, we place those words in quotation marks. If we foresee using more than three paragraphs from a lengthy source, we ask permission of the author. Eventually we reach the writing stage. So, we quote them in our biography, again being meticulous in our observance of those quotation marks and reference notes.

The problem here is that we, ourselves, have written nothing, We have merely patched together the writings of others to create a block of text.

Whether we copy phrases, sentences, or whole paragraphs, this approach creates no new insight. We are applying no writing skills. Stitching together patches of thoughts we have taken from others is not authorship.