Syracuse University considers plagiarism a serious offense. Refer to the Academic Integrity Office for current University policies and procedures concerning plagiarism and other violations of academic integrity.
The use of ChatGPT or other AI tools in assignments should be discussed with your instructor. As a general rule, if you are incorporating any information from an AI tool into your research assignments, you must cite the AI tool or the information that the tool is directing you to.
For more information about ChatGPT and AI, please visit the Libraries' Artificial Intelligence guide.
For faculty/instructors looking for further teaching support and development around ChatGPT and AI, contact CTLE at CTLE@syr.edu.
For anyone with questions about ChatGPT / AI and academic integrity, contact CLASS at aio@syr.edu.
Official APA, MLA, and Chicago style guidance on how to cite ChatGPT:
If you would like to practice identifying plagiarism, then try out this exercise worksheet!
We've all heard the warning to not "plagiarize" and we know it is bad, but what does it exactly mean?
The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines plagiarizing as "to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one's own; and to use (another's production) without crediting the source," (Merriam-Webster, 2021).
Research projects require us to find evidence outside of our textbooks to support the arguments we make; however, we cannot just plug in the evidence we find without crediting those who create that evidence. It is important to cite all of the sources you use in your projects - after all, you would not want someone to pass your work off as their own.
Direct quoting is when you quote a piece of information word-for-word from the original author's work.
Tips:
You must make sure you are following the appropriate citation style. For ENRM 345, you need to use APA, 7th ed. (please refer to the APA tab on this guide).
In general, when you cite with direct quotations, you must:
Paraphrasing is when you explain what you learned from the article in your own words; however, you are still using someone else's original idea that you cannot pass off as your own.
When paraphrasing correctly, you need to change the wording and sentence structure from the original work, but never the original meaning.
Reminder: Do not twist the meaning of the author's original words to fit your narrative. The author's meaning should not change.
Common knowledge is generally information that the average person would accept as fact and reliable without having to look it up. This is can be a tricky concept when applied to specific fields because what may be common knowledge in the nursing field may not be common in the environmental sciences field.
First, you should ask yourself a series of helpful questions:
In general, a basic rule to keep in mind when using common knowledge is: If you can find the same information, stated in the exact same way in multiple sources (approximately 3-5 sources), then you can consider it to be common knowledge.
More information about common knowledge:
Turnitin at SU Library is the Library hosted version of Turnitin software whereby students can submit drafts of papers to check for possible instances of plagiarism before they submit final drafts to their course instructors.
Please be aware that Turnitin now includes a feature to detect if any submitted papers are AI generated. This feature will only be viewable for instructors on their course Turninit, and not through the Libraries' version of Turnitin.
Warning: Automated plagiarism detection systems like Turnitin offer some accuracy in comparing the percentage of your content against other sources in order to arrive at a determination at originality. Academic writing that is loaded with text copied from other sources is easily detected using systems like Turnitin. However, such systems do not evaluate the extent and quality of your use of academic citation formats, proper attribution and referencing techniques, etc. Sloppy practice in that area can also lead to accusations of plagiarism. In addition, such automated systems do not cross-check against millions of pages of content held in hundreds of library subscription databases, nor do they cross-check against millions of pages of off-line books, manuscripts, etc. Some have also raised privacy and copyright concerns regarding Turnitin to the extent student papers are saved in the Turnitin system. Papers submitted to Turnitin via the SU Library Turnitin Blackboard space are not saved in the more global Turnitin database.
Have additional questions about plagiarism and how to avoid it?
Browse the following resources from Purdue OWL to help:
Below is Cornell University's tutorial regarding plagiarism, including written and video explanations, and practice exercises: