Helping Students to Avoid Plagiarism, and to Cite and Paraphrase Correctly

The UNT Writing Center offers 1-2 general workshops for students on avoiding plagiarism and proper citation in MLA, APA, or Chicago Manual/Turabian Style in Willis Library each semester. In addition, we can offer tailored, interactive workshops for your classes that can help your students learn to read and incorporate sources into their papers more effectively. Please e-mail the director, Dr. Mary Lutze, at Mary.Lutze@unt.edu for further details and to arrange a course visit.

Tips for Instructors

One of the best ways to head off plagiarism is to regularly change writing assignments and to develop prompts that make it difficult for the writer to avoid doing their own work.

Besides outright "stealing" a paper or having someone (or something) else write a paper for them, many students are guilty of plagiarism due to these common types of misunderstandings:

  • Sloppy paraphrasing or "patchwriting," where the student has not paraphrased enough
  • Not understanding that citation is required for paraphrased content as well as directly quoted content
  • Not understanding that quoting is not the same thing as citing
  • Not understanding citational rules
  • Not understanding what kinds of information needs to be cited
  • Cultural or linguistic barriers

Citation is complex. Students don't always understand the rhetorical and practical purpose of citations, i.e., they don't understand why we write with sources, and they don't understand how to write with sources. Unfortunately, when we address plagiarism, we often stress to students what not to do, rather than teaching them what they should do.

Aside from having your students work with the Writing Center on this important and difficult aspect of writing, here are some additional suggestions:

  • Encourage your students to visit the Writing Center early and often so that they have ample time to brainstorm, write, and revise course assignments.
  • To head off the temptation for students to use ChatGPT or other Generative AI software, incorporate active drafting in class so that your students don't turn to ChatGPT after procrastinating all semester.
  • Be patient with students, who are new to using sources, especially if you see evidence they are trying their best to follow the rules. Find out why your students might be making mistakes.
  • Give your students a paper that uses sources and citations, along with access to the original material, for analysis.
  • Do not teach the different citation systems as interchangeable. The way we argue and have an academic conversation is very different in APA than it is in MLA, for example. Choose a system that makes the most sense for what you want your students to do.
  • Consider giving your students a short writing assignment that asks them to incorporate sources properly for practice.