Academic Integrity and How to Avoid Plagiarism
Academic integrity means doing your own work and giving proper credit for anyone else’s ideas you use. Most plagiarism in coursework isn’t intentional cheating — it’s a citation mistake or a shortcut taken under deadline pressure. This page covers what plagiarism actually is, how to avoid the most common slip-ups, and what tools can help.
What Is Plagiarism?
American National University defines plagiarism as representing another person’s words, ideas, or work as your own without proper credit — whether that’s a direct copy-paste, an unattributed paraphrase, or reusing your own previously submitted work for a new assignment without your instructor’s permission. The Code of Academic Integrity Policy covers both plagiarism and other forms of academic dishonesty, including cheating and misrepresenting your own participation in group work.
Read the full Code of Academic Integrity Policy
Common Ways Students Accidentally Plagiarize
- Copying text from a website without quotation marks, even if you cite the source — if the wording is identical, it needs quotation marks and a page or paragraph reference.
- Paraphrasing too closely — changing a few words while keeping the original sentence structure still counts as plagiarism. A real paraphrase restates the idea in your own sentence structure, not just different word choices.
- Reusing a paper (or part of one) from a previous class without your current instructor’s explicit permission.
- Forgetting to cite a source you paraphrased, assuming citation is only needed for direct quotes — it isn’t; ideas need credit too, not just exact wording.
How to Avoid Plagiarism
- Take notes in your own words as you research, rather than copying passages to paraphrase later — it’s much easier to accidentally plagiarize when you’re working from the original text.
- Cite as you write, not after you finish — it’s easy to lose track of which idea came from which source if you leave citations for the end.
- Run your paper through Grammarly’s free plagiarism checker before submitting, as a final check — not a substitute for careful note-taking and citation along the way.
Grammarly’s plagiarism checker
Citation Software: Helpful, Not Foolproof
Citation generators like Zotero can speed up building your reference list, especially for online sources — but they frequently make small errors (wrong punctuation, missing elements), so always double-check generated citations against the examples in our [INTERNAL LINK: /getting-started-with-apa-citation/ “APA citation guide”]. Remember that every source needs two things: an in-text citation where you use it, and a matching entry on your References page.
FAQ
Is paraphrasing without citing still plagiarism?
Yes. Ideas need credit just as much as direct quotes do — paraphrasing removes the need for quotation marks, not the need for a citation.
Can I reuse a paper I wrote for a different class?
Not without your current instructor’s explicit permission — submitting the same work for two assignments without disclosure is a form of academic dishonesty.
What happens if I’m found to have plagiarized?
Consequences range from a zero on the assignment to dismissal from the university, depending on severity and whether it’s a repeat issue — see the full Code of Academic Integrity Policy for details.
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