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Plagiarism Definitions

From SUNY Geneseo's Policy on Plagiarism:

Plagiarism is the representation of someone else’s words or ideas as one’s own, or the arrangement of someone else’s material(s) as one’s own. Such misrepresentation may be sufficient grounds for a student’s receiving a grade of E for the paper or presentation involved or may result in an E being assigned as the final grade for the course. Any one of the following constitutes evidence of plagiarism:

  • Direct quotation without identifying punctuation and citation of source
  • Paraphrase of expression or thought without proper attribution
  • Unacknowledged dependence upon a source in plan, organization, or argument

From SUNY Geneseo Undergraduate Bulletin, 2004-2006.



From Turabian:

"By definition, a research paper involves the assimilation of prior scholarship and entails the responsibility to give proper acknowledgement whenever one is indebted to another for either words or ideas" (74). Plagiarism is failure to give credit for including the words and ideas of others in a paper by "quoting works accurately and attributing quotations and ideas to their authors in notes..., bibliographies...., and parenthetical references and reference lists (74)."

  • Turabian, Kate. L. A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Disserations, 6th ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996.

From Hacker:

Three different acts are considered plagiarism: (1) failing to cite quotations and borrowed ideas, (2) failing to enclose borrowed language in quotation marks, and (3) failing to put summaries and paraphrases in your own words.

  • Hacker, Diana. A Writer's Reference, 5th ed. Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martins, 2003.

The Online Writing Guide

This page on plagiarism from the SUNY Geneseo Online Writing Guide reprints articles about plagiarism cases.