How to Use APA Citing and

Paraphrasing to Avoid
Plagiarism

Is This Plagiarism?
Copying a direct quotation into your
paper,
placing quotation marks around it, and
crediting
the source.
NO!
This is not plagiarism.

How about this?

Taking someones ideas or words, putting
them
into your own words, and crediting the
source.
NO!
This is not plagiarism.
Its Paraphrasing!

What is Paraphrasing?
A paraphrase uses an author's idea, but
expresses
it in your own words, without the use of
quotation marks.
Just changing a few words from the
original is plagiarism.
Paraphrasing is permitted as long
as you credit the source.

Examples of Paraphrasing
The original passage:
Students frequently overuse direct quotation [when] taking notes,
and as a result they overuse quotations in the final [research]
paper. Probably only about 10% of your final manuscript
should appear as directly quoted matter. Therefore, you
should strive to limit the amount of exact transcribing of source
materials while taking notes. Lester, James D. Writing Research Papers.
2nd ed. (1976): 46-47
A legitimate paraphrase:
In research papers students often quote excessively, failing to keep
quoted material down to a desirable level. Since the problem usually
originates during note taking, it is essential to minimize the material
recorded verbatim (Lester 46-47).

Examples cont.
An acceptable summary:
Students should take just a few notes in direct quotations
from sources to help minimize the amount of quoted material
in a research paper (Lester 46-47).
A plagiarized version:
Students often use too many direct quotations when they
take notes, resulting in too many of them in the final research
paper. In fact, probably only about 10% of the final copy
should consist of directly quoted material. So it is important to
limit the amount of source material copied while taking notes.

What is Quoting?
A quotation uses exactly the same words
and
puts them in quotation marks.
- If the quotation is more than 2 lines you
should put it in a separate paragraph
and indent it from both sides.
Leprosy was eradicated in the west by
the end of medieval times (Foucault 3).

What is a Summary?
A summary should contain the main points
from the author's text. Don't forget to
reference it with the author's family name,
date of publication and page number.

When Should I
Paraphrase?

Quote?

Summarize?

1.Theauthorswordswill
bedifficultforyourreader
tounderstand

1.Everythingtheauthor
writesisimportant

1. Notalltheauthors
wordsarenecessary
e.g.Iftheauthorgives
examplesorexplanations
thatyoudontneedtoput
inyourtext

2.Yourinstructorwantsto
knowifyouunderstandthe
authorcorrectly

2.Thequotationwillnot
makeyourtexttoolong

2.Ifparaphrasingorquoting
willmakeyourtexttoolong

3.Youhaventusedmany
quotationsalready

Common Knowledge
Things that are considered common knowledge
do not need to be cited.
Examples:
-Canadian Confederation began in the year 1867.
-John A. Macdonald was Canadas first Prime
Minister.
-William Shakespeare was born in England in the
16th Century.

APA Formatting
List only the resources to which you have specifically
referred, not those merely consulted
Place the page of references at the end of your
assignment on a separate page titled References
Use authors names in the order they appear on the
title page; do not alphabetize multiple authors of a
source
Invert authors names and include only initials of first
and middle names (i.e. Adam Smith becomes Smith,
A.) Use an ampersand (&) to connect two authors
names (e.g. Spacey, K., & Butler, G.)
Use commas to separate authors and an ampersand
for the last author if there are three to six authors

Formatting cont.
List the first six authors and then et al. if there are more
than six
Begin the reference with the title of the work if no author is
given
Arrange the list alphabetically; if there is no author and the
title begins with a, an, or the, alphabetize by the second
word
Begin each entry with a hanging indent (first line begins at
the left margin and all other lines are indented inch)
Double space within and between entries in your list of
references
Capitalize only the first word in the title and the first word
after a colon

APA Quick Tips

An in text citation must point clearly to a
specific source in References.
The in text citations and the References list
work together.
The in text citation, a brief reference to a work,
enables the reader to identify the source of an
idea quickly and easily. Knowing the authors last
name (or the title) from the in text citation, a
reader can locate the complete publication
information for that work in the alphabetically
arranged References list.

Useful APA Tools/Resources

CommunicationsCentre
RefWorks
TheBRAIN
Library@Mohawk
PublicationmanualoftheAmerican
PsychologicalAssociation6thedition

http://mohawkcollege.ca.libguides.com/content.pp?pid=135623&sid=1162051

References
Documenting research sources using APA style. (n.d.). Retrieved from
http://spark.mohawkcollege.ca/tutorials/PDFtutorials/APA_guide.pdf

You note it, you quote it. (n.d.). Retrieved from

http://library.acadiau.ca/tutorials/plagiarism/

Helpful Fact Sheets. (n.d.) Retrieved from

http://www.mohawkcollege.ca/Discover/Help/CommCentre/helpfulFactSheets.html