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Plagiarism is the act of presenting someone else's work as your own. Plagiarism is theft of intellectual property. The most obvious form of plagiarism consists of stealing an author's exact words and failing to use quotation marks or to cite the author. However, other more subtle degrees of plagiarism exist. To avoid unintentional plagiarism, a writer must be aware of this fact. The following passage is quoted exactly from F. R. Leavis's book The Great Tradition. Various revisions of it will demonstrate the difference between plagiarism and proper paraphrasing.

See Summarizing, Paraphrasing, and Quoting 

See Plagiarism vs. Documentation

See our Academic Integrity Policy

Original Text by Leavis:

Dickens, as everyone knows, is very capable of sentimentality. We have it in Hard Times (though not to any seriously damaging effect) in Stephen Blackpool, the good, victimized working man, whose perfect patience under infliction we are expected to find supremely edifying and irresistibly touching as the agonies are piled on for his martyrdom. But Sissy Jupe is another matter. A general description of her part in the fable might suggest the worst, but actually she has nothing in common with Little Nell: she shares in the strength of the Horse-riding. She is wholly convincing in the function Dickens assigns to her (235). -F. R. Leavis, The Great Tradition. New York: New York University Press, 1964.

Revision 1:

Charles Dickens, most agree, can be sentimental. We see it in Hard Times, (although it doesn't cause any great problems) in Blackpool, who is an honest worker with whom we sympathize because he suffers a lot. Sissy Jupe is different. Although she sounds like a sentimental character, she is very different from Little Nell. She takes part in riding horses, and Dickens makes her very convincing in that role.

Comment on Revision 1:

Revision 1 demonstrates the work of someone who either intends to commit plagiarism or who doesn't realize what plagiarism is. Plagiarism cannot be avoided just by substituting a few words and transforming some sentences. This version is plagiarism because it copies Leavis's sequence of ideas, a type of fingerprint that will give away the guilty student writer. The student has not cited Leavis as the source and has not used the information meaningfully.

Revision 2:

Sometimes Dickens is sentimental. Examples of his sentimental characters include Blackpool in Hard Times and Little Nell. Sissy Jupe is another character that might be considered sentimental at first glance, but she is different. She has greater depth and is more convincing as a character than the others.

Comment on Revision 2:

Examples like Revision 2 typically result from sloppy note taking. The student writer was probably trying to get the bare essentials and intended to put them into his or her own words later. In composing the draft, however, the writer forgot how closely tied these words are to the original. Notice that Revision 2 is limited to the ideas in the original. This revision is plagiarism because the student copied Leavis's ideas without giving him credit and because there is no evidence of the student's own thought here. This version could be saved from plagiarism by citing Leavis as the source of the ideas.

Revision 3:

Dickens' novel Hard Times rises above sentimentality. Some characters, for instance, Stephen Blackpool, do appear sentimental. Blackpool exceeds all reasonable expectation in tolerating a drunken woman who repeatedly robs him, runs off, and throws herself on his mercy when she needs help. Likewise, his patient, calm manner towards his bully of an employer (never once does he lose his temper) is unrealistic and calculated to squeeze sympathy from a reader. Sissy Jupe, however, is a more complete character. Instead of making her a mere victim, Dickens develops her role. He gives her a consistent strength and point of view. For example, when her teacher asks if a nation with fifty millions of money was a prosperous nation, she answers, "...I couldn't know whether it was a prosperous nation...unless I knew who had got the money, and whether any of it was mine" (Dickens 982).

Comment on Revision 3:

Revision 3 is an example of the proper use of a source. This student has picked up some ideas but has looked for other examples to support them. Notice that this version has its own topic sentence. This student, therefore, was independently following a plan and not simply taking another author's material.