Avoiding Plagiarism
Learning to summarize, paraphrase and quote correctly is essential to avoiding plagiarism. Plagiarism (i.e. passing off someone else's words or thoughts as your own) is a serious academic offence. Whether summarizing, paraphrasing or quoting, you must footnote, or "cite," your source (see the module on footnoting and bibliographies for proper bibliographic format). However, even the properly documented paraphrasing of someone else's writing constitutes plagiarism if the paraphrase contains more than 2 or 3 consecutive words from the original that are not enclosed in quotation marks, or uses the same syntax (i.e. sentence structure) as the original but with different words.
The worst kind of plagiarism, of course, is submitting an essay written in whole or in part by someone else. Even copying a short passage constitutes plagiarism unless the student encloses the passage in quotation marks and acknowledges the source. But the student who changes only the odd word in someone else's sentences is also (perhaps unwittingly) committing plagiarism, as is the one who relies heavily on secondary sources for the argument, organization, and main point of his or her paper. You can avoid committing plagiarism unwittingly by reading widely on your topic, and by using good research and note-taking techniques.
Trent University's Academic Integrity Policy sets out the consequences of plagiarism and other forms of academic dishonesty. Penalties range from a grade of 0 on the essay with no opportunity to re-write, to failure in the course and a permanent record of the offence on your transcript. Students who offend repeatedly face suspension and even expulsion. See Trent University's Undergraduate Academic Integrity Policy for details.