Plagiarism - Citing Your Sources And Plagiarism - NICC Library at Northeast Iowa Community College
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Citing Your Sources And Plagiarism

Use this guide to understand how to correctly use quotes and paraphrases and cite your sources in a research paper.

Dishonesty and Cheating

Dishonesty and Cheating

Academic dishonesty will not be tolerated in any course at NICC.  Plagiarism and other forms of cheating are examples of such dishonesty and will result in serious consequences.


Plagiarism includes, but is not limited to, the following:

  • use direct quotes without quotation marks and textual citation of the material;
  • paraphrase without crediting the source;
  • present another's ideas as their own without citing the source;
  • submit material developed by someone else as their own (this includes purchasing or borrowing a paper or copying a disk);
  • submit a paper or assignment for which so much help has been received that the writing is significantly different from their own.

Information taken from the NICC College Catalog 2012-2013, p. 59

Five Tips For Avoiding Plagiarism

  1. First, use your own ideas. It is your paper and therefore your ideas should be the focus.
  2. Use the ideas of others sparingly and only to support or reinforce your own argument.
  3. When taking notes, include complete citation information for each item you use.
  4. Use quotation marks when directly stating another person's words.
  5. A good strategy is to take 30 minutes and write a short draft of your paper without using any notes. It will help you think through what you want to say and help to prevent you from becoming to dependent on your sources.   

Information taken from Milner Library - Illinois State University LibGuide http://illinoisstate.v1.libguides.com/citing/plagiarism

Guidelines to Avoid Plagiarism

How to Avoid Plagiarism - Tips For Students

Plagiarism: How to avoid it. (n.d.). Retrieved August 31, 2015, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2q0NlWcTq1Y