How to Paraphrase and Avoid Plagiarism Beth Kirsner

How to Paraphrase and Avoid Plagiarism Beth Kirsner, Ph. D. Kennesaw State University

Borrowing Ideas • Writing in the field of psychology involves much more writing about ideas others have discussed than writing about your own ideas. • Every time you write about, or borrow, others’ ideas (written or spoken), you must give the authors of those ideas credit

Paraphrasing vs. Quoting • Quoting: copying someone else’s words exactly (and clearly indicating anything that is not exactly the same as the original) • Paraphrasing: Putting someone else’s ideas into your own words, using your own personal style and structure

Giving Credit Paraphrasing 1. Give credit for the ideas by citing their source Quoting 2. Use your own words and structure to convey the ideas 2. Put quotation marks around the words you copied from the original You can use any keywords found in the original (there is no need to put quotation marks around those words or phrases) Copy the original words exactly or clearly indicate any changes from the original 1. Give credit for the ideas by citing their source

Correcting Misconceptions About Quoting 1. Quotation marks should not be used around keywords 2. Quote very rarely, primarily for definitions 3. You are not expected to explain ideas as well as the original authors, and fear that you can’t is NOT a reason to quote 4. When you use quotation marks, a citation is always going to be needed

Quoting • Use quotation marks around all the words that you copy from other authors, written or verbal • Use the original authors’ words verbatim, except – If you change any words, then enclose the changes in brackets: • Original: “They went to the park every day. ” • New: “They [go] to the park every day. ” – If you omit a word or passage, replace it with ellipses (. . . ) – If what you are quoting contains an error, indicate your awareness of the error by placing [sic] immediately following the error

Misrepresenting Others’ Words • Quoting errors are a form of plagiarism – I can tell when you quote me as the author of words I would never have said – I can often tell when you quote material from assigned reading inaccurately • Quotation marks indicate that the cited author said something specific, so if the author did not say that, you have lied about that person • Don’t change the intent of what the author did say by taking words out of context • Lies about what others said have consequences • Ignorance and sloppiness do not excuse plagiarism

Paraphrasing • Paraphrasing means putting someone else’s ideas into your own words using your own structure • It does not mean – Changing some or all of the words or phrases in the original passage by replacing them with synonyms – Shuffling around the original text into a different order – Any combination or variation of the above techniques

Paraphrasing (continued) • If you paraphrase – you DO NOT use quotation marks – You DO include a citation near the beginning of the paraphrased section – You CAN (and should, ideally) include page numbers for paraphrased materials, but this is not required they way it is for quoted materials (see p. 121 in the APA Publication Manual)

Definitions are no exception! • Dictionaries contain someone else’s words – You learn in school to take definitions straight from them without giving appropriate credit and perhaps even without quotation marks around the copied words – This is an unfortunate bad habit for your teachers to have encouraged – It does not excuse your failure to use quotation marks and citations now when you borrow someone else’s words or ideas

Every Source Deserves Credit • Information you learn as part of a class is not an exception to the rules – Information written on the board – Information spoken by your instructor – Information in lecture slides – Information in videos you watch – Information in podcasts you listen to – Information in the books and articles you read

Speech • When people speak, what they say is their “property” and you must cite them if you use the ideas they conveyed – It’s easy to forget to cite in situations that don’t occur very often, such as • Guest lecturers • Definitions written on the board

Long or short, spoken or written • If you didn’t invent the idea, you need to cite someone as the source of it! – No matter how short or how long the lecture from which you got the idea – No matter how short or long the written passage from which you got the idea – No matter how recently or long ago you learned of the idea

What if you don’t know the source? (“I just know it”) • Use your library research skills to locate the original source of the idea – Try to locate the earliest published source of the idea – Textbooks can often point you in the direction of the original source of an idea, theory, or model – Librarians can also help you with this process: Your research librarian is a valuable and often underutilized resource in most school and public libraries

What about “common knowledge”? • Facts that can be found in numerous places and are likely to be known by a lot of people; information possessed and regularly used by the general public • For example, naming the president does not require a citation • When in doubt about whether something is common knowledge, play it safe and cite your source or ask your professor • Some ideas may be treated as “shared knowledge” in a particular context • If you’re not certain, it never hurts to cite.

Summary of Plagiarism Avoidance • Use quotation marks around others’ words and place a citation immediately outside the end of the quote – You are required to include page numbers in the citation – Put brackets around any words that differ from the original • Use a citation after paraphrasing another’s words – Include a page number • This is optional, but preferred per the APA Manual (see p. 121) – Do not use quotation marks if you are not using the other person’s words • Do not attribute words to someone that the person did not say or write (and don’t change the intent of what they did say by taking their words out of context) • Paraphrasing requires different words and structure

Citation Format • Citations for text being paraphrased or quoted generally include: – the name of the author(s) – the year – the page number (if available) • Note that APA format makes the inclusion of page number optional for citations (but mandatory for quotations)

Two Types of Citations • In-text citations are found in the text – Signal phrases use the authors’ names at the subject of the sentence, as in: Jones (2000, p. 167) found that. . . – Parenthetical citations offset the citation information within parentheses, as in: Older participants had lower scores than younger participants (Jones, 2000, p. 167). • Reference citations are found after the end of the text in their own section

APA Style In-Text Citations • Book (Buss, 2003, p. 22) • Lecture (B. Kirsner, personal communication, month day, year) • Article (Hazelton & Buss, 2000, pp. 81– 82) • Website (Sensitivity and specificity, n. d. , para. 3)

Citing Secondary Sources • A secondary source cites an original, or primary, source of information • If you don’t read the original source, you must indicate that you relied on the secondary source for your information • Citation includes the name of the original source’s author(s), “as cited in, ” and the authors(s) and date of the secondary source • Only the secondary source is listed in the references

APA style reference citations • Book Buss, D. M. (2003). The evolution of desire: Strategies of human mating. New York, NY: Basic Books. • Lecture Personal communications are not included in references. • Article Hazelton, M. G. , & Buss, D. M. (2000). Error management theory: A new perspective on biases in cross-sex mind reading. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 78, 81– 91. • Website Sensitivity and specificity. (n. d. ). Retrieved from Medical University of South Carolina Doctoring Curriculum Web site: http: //www. musc. edu/dc/icrebm/sensitivity. html

Paraphrasing basics • Use your own words • Do not use words you do not understand – Low-frequency words arouse suspicion • Keywords are okay • Use your own sentence and paragraph structure – It’s not enough just to change the order of the ideas

“Explain it to your mother” (A. J. Figueredo, personal communication, 2006) 1. Read and think about the relevant section of the text or notes 2. Put the original materials away and think about how you would explain the ideas to your mother * 3. Write your explanation in the simplest possible way 4. If you have trouble, start again from step #1 5. If you still have trouble, ask for help to understand the material better 6. Proofread and revise as necessary

Helpful hints • Bullet point each idea in the original – Get more information if any part is not clear • Look up terminology • Read about the same topic in other sources • Put the ideas back together in your own unique way • Incorporate other relevant information – Results of other studies that found the same (or different) results – Explanations that might help the reader understand the ideas better

Original text “Although the term sexual strategies is a useful metaphor for thinking about solutions to mating problems, it is misleading in the sense of connoting conscious intent” (Buss, 2003, p. 6).

Bullet point for each idea • • • Sexual strategies is a metaphor Solutions to mating problems It’s useful, but It misleads us because it Connotes conscious intent

Paraphrase When we use the word strategies, we usually think about behaviors that are deliberate, behaviors of which we are consciously aware. When we talk about sexual strategies, this way of thinking misleads us. The term sexual strategies is used to describe a set of behaviors that solve mating problems, but we are not usually conscious that we are doing is for the purpose of solving mating problems (Buss, 2003, p. 6).

Original Although the term sexual strategies is a useful metaphor for thinking about solutions to mating problems, it is misleading in the sense of connoting conscious intent. Paraphrase When we use the word strategies, we usually think about behaviors that are deliberate, behaviors of which we are consciously aware. When we talk about sexual strategies, this way of thinking misleads us. The term sexual strategies is used to describe a set of behaviors that solve mating problems, but we are not usually conscious that we are doing is for the purpose of solving mating problems.

Opportunities for Practice Starting on the next slide, there are two passages you could use to practice your paraphrasing skills. I suggest that you read the contents of the next slide and try to follow the steps I have described: 1. List each idea in the passage 2. Look up any unfamiliar terminology 3. Ask for help to understand anything that then doesn’t make sense 4. Put the original aside and try to explain the passage as though you were talking to an interested friend or relative

Practice #1 “Keeping a mate is another important adaptive problem; mates may continue to be desirable to rivals, who may poach, thereby undoing all the effort devoted to attracting, courting, and committing to the mate… Mates, once gained, must be retained” (Buss, 2003, p. 10).

Bullet point for each idea • Keeping a mate is a problem important to reproductive success (an adaptive problem) • Mates may be desirable to rivals, even after they commit to us • Those others may try to poach them from us • If they succeed, we lose because • We already invested lots of effort in that mate • So, you have to work to keep the mate you have

One possible paraphrasing for #1 After you have undertaken all the work of finding a mate and developing a committed relationship with him or her, you have to guard against losing that mate to a rival. A rival is someone who might try to steal your mate because he or she finds your mate desirable… Once you have attracted a mate, you have to keep him or her (Buss, 2003, p. 10).

Original Paraphrase Keeping a mate is another important adaptive problem; mates may continue to be desirable to rivals, who may poach, thereby undoing all the effort devoted to attracting, courting, and committing to the mate… Mates, once gained, must be retained. After you have undertaken all the work of finding a mate and developing a committed relationship with him or her, you have to guard against losing that mate to a rival. A rival is someone who might try to steal your mate because he or she finds your mate desirable… Once you have attracted a mate, you have to keep him or her.

Practice #2 Paradoxically, the traditional double standard may even betray an innate male understanding that if given the cultural freedom to do so, females would behave as licentiously as males (Baker, 1996, p. xxiv).

One possible paraphrasing for #2 The reason for the double standard may run contrary to our intuitions. The traditional difference in sexual standards for women versus men may have come about because men understand that women would be as sexually unrestrained as they are if they didn’t face any cultural constraints on their behavior (Baker, 1996, p. xxiv).

Original Paradoxically, the traditional double standard may even betray an innate male understanding that if given the cultural freedom to do so, females would behave as licentiously as males. Paraphrase The reason for the double standard may run contrary to our intuitions. The traditional difference in sexual standards for women versus men may have come about because men understand that women would be as sexually unrestrained as they are if they didn’t face any cultural constraints on their behavior.