Return to Avoiding Plagiarism Resources
Plagiarism Checklist
To be sure you acknowledge sources fairly and do not plagiarize, review
the following checklist both before beginning to write your paper and again
after you have completed your first draft:
1. What type of source are you using: your own independent material,
common knowledge, or someone else's independent material?
2. If you are quoting someone else's material, is the quotation exact?
Have you inserted quotation marks around quotations run into the text?
Have you shown omissions with ellipses and additions with brackets?
3. If you are paraphrasing or summarizing someone else's material,
have you used your own words and sentence structures? Does your
paraphrase or summary employ quotation marks when you resort to
the author's exact language? Have you represented the author's meaning
without distortion?
4. Is each use of someone else's material acknowledged in your text?
Are all your source citations complete and accurate?
5. Does your list of works cited include all the sources you have drawn
from in writing your paper?
* Plagiarism information from Fowler's The Little, Brown Handbook, 7th ed., Boston: Little, Brown, 1996:
578-84; Checklist website format from R. Mugford, Scottsdale Community College.
