Tips to Avoid Plagiarism 

Abundant guidance exists on how to avoid plagiarism. Many of it focuses on how to properly include citations in the end products of scholarship. While this is an important step, there are several practices one can employ at the beginning of a project to avoid claiming another's work as your own.

1. Mitigate stress by planning ahead and asking for help. 
   Various studies link negative emotions, like stress or anxiety, with attitudes concerning plagiarism (Tindall et al.; Tindall and Curtis; Roe). 
   • Contact an academic coach in the Harte Center to get help with time management and study skills.
   • Need help accurately attributing others words in your work? Depending on your specific need, you may want to:
     • Stop by your professor's office hours,
     • Make an appointment with the Writing Center,
     • Or, make an appointment with a librarian.
2. When doing research, document your sources from the beginning.
   The library recommends Zotero to keep track of sources. Zotero lets you collect all the information you need for a source in an app on your computer—no more worrying about accidentally closing browser tabs and losing that perfect source!
3. Take detailed notes throughout your project. 
   • Try to note who said what (an interesting quotation or paraphrased idea), when (a page number or other identifying location) and where (a title).
   • Multiple note taking methodologies exists and so do tools to optimize the note-taking experience (like OneNote available through MyApps). Set up an appointment with an academic coach in the Harte Center to discuss note taking strategies.

Works Cited for this page