Style Guide for Research Papers: Plagiarism

Always use quotations marks and a footnote with words that are not your own, including words generated by ChatGPT or other generative AI tools. Quotation marks without a footnote or a footnote without quotation marks still count as plagiarism. Paraphrasing a source with sentences so similar to the original that they are quotations with light thesaurus work, or are simply rearranged clauses from the original, still counts as plagiarism.

Ideas that are common knowledge do not need to be cited. The challenge is in knowing what is and is not common knowledge. When in doubt, cite it. It is better to have too many citations than too few. The Purdue OWL Plagiarism page reflects the standard guideline of repetition in five or more sources as a baseline for something being in common knowledge.

Footnotes are not just a place to provide the source of a quotation. Footnotes can refer to the source of information even what that source is not quoted in the body of the paper. Footnotes can also provide extra data that would be cumbersome in the body of the paper, such as listing other sources that agree or disagree with the point being made, or annotating the resources with information that would detract from the main point in the body of the paper.