TIPS FOR AVOIDING PLAGIARISM
Northeastern Seminary (
Always
provide a bibliographic citation for information you have gleaned from resources
other than yourself. You don’t have to provide footnotes for your own brilliant
ideas. But you must provide a citation for information that comes from other
people. Books, articles, essays,
videotapes, interviews, sermons—all must be cited in proper form. Even if you
completely restate the information, you must provide the source of information.
Otherwise, if you don’t cite your sources, you are implicitly claiming credit
for the information contained in statements that have no citation.
If you
don’t provide an exact quotation from another source, restate the ideas
contained in the quote—in your own words. Do not use the exact words of the
source, or merely re-arrange the grammar—completely restate the ideas. You must
still provide a citation for the source where you got the ideas. This is a
matter of intellectual honesty.
When
citing a book, article or essay, in print or electronic form, make certain that
the first footnote is a full bibliographic citation. The citation should
provide enough information to allow readers to find the original source of the
cited information. The best place to get the information for books is the title
page and the verso of the title page—on the left side of the page immediately
following the title page. Double- or even triple-check the
cited information for accuracy. Inaccurate bibliographic information
seriously damages the internal validity of your paper.
When
someone provides a resource for you—especially a rare book or hard-to-locate
article—or even a personal copy or a photocopy of an article (especially one
that can’t be located easily), you can acknowledge her/his help in a footnote. This
goes for oral tidbits that can’t be found in published form. For example, an acquaintance in
You
need to properly cite interviews with people—at least their name and the date
of the interview, and the person who conducted the interview. For example: Mrs. Francis R. Guy, interview
by the author, 3 June 1978. Some folks
have written theses with footnotes that cited “anonymous.” When you cite
sources who wish to remain anonymous, devise a system to protect their
privacy: Code your interviewees with
letters, numbers or letter-number combinations.
Avoid assigning ‘fake names’—you might inadvertently assign ‘real’
names!
Do not cite information from a source that is in fact a citation of another source, without acknowledging the source where you found it. Do not steal quotations and footnotes from other writers—acknowledge the work that others have done in gathering that information. It’s important to tell your readers where you picked up the information. Acknowledge not only the original source, but also the resource where you found the information and its citation.
When
you cite primary texts, e.g. Athanasius’ On the Incarnation, make a
proper citation for your source—CD-ROM, online full-text database, edited
collection of primary texts, or Internet website. It is especially important to
spell out exactly which edition you are citing—pagination and wording can vary
widely among texts, even the same work. There have been numerous editions of
Augustine’s City of
Remember—plagiarism is theft of intellectual property—a failure to provide proper credit for someone else’s ideas. Plagiarism is a form of dishonesty, and is consequently incompatible with a profession of faith in Jesus Christ. Plagiarism is universally scorned by scholars of every theological and non-theological stripe—liberals, moderates, conservatives, Baptists, Mormons, Buddhists, agnostics—one thread that connects all reputable scholars is their common disdain for plagiarism. Aim for nothing less than the highest standard of integrity when you write your papers—cite your sources and cite them accurately.
Page Last Modified
9 March 2006