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RNSG 2028 Nurse Leadership: Formatting and Citation Help

Academic Honesty

Most college students know that plagiarism—deliberately submitting something you did not write—is a violation of academic honesty with serious consequences. Not all realize, however, that other forms of academic dishonesty are also unacceptable. These include:

  • Double-submitting, or using the same work to meet assignments in two or more courses;
  • Insufficient paraphrasing, or representing someone else’s language too closely as your own;
  • Pirating ideas, or using the thoughts, concepts, and analysis of someone else—even those of a friend or roommate in casual conversation—as your own;
  • Incomplete citation, or failing to include all necessary elements of documentation in your citations (for example, omitting either in-text citations or a Works Cited pages when both are required);
  • Under-documentation, or combining several sources into a single one.
  • If you have any doubts about whether you are engaging in academic dishonesty, the best approach is to show a draft to your professor and discuss how you are documenting your sources. Do not simply take the word of a fellow student, who may unintentionally be giving you bad advice

Source: Colby College Farnham Writing Center web.colby.edu

Plagiarism

According to Merriam-Webster Dictionary, "plagiarism" means:

"An act of copying the ideas or words of another person without giving credit to that person."

One of the main reasons to cite is to avoid plagiarism. Citing your sources is a standard academic practice that allows the reader to find the sources you used to write your paper. It gives credit to other researchers and acknowledges their ideas.  It provides supporting evidence for your work and increases your credibility. 

The key to avoiding plagiarism is to make sure you give credit where it is due. This may be credit for something somebody said, wrote, emailed, drew, or implied. Students sometimes forget exactly what needs to be credited. Here is a brief list of what needs to be credited or documented:

  • Words or ideas presented in a magazine, book, newspaper, song, TV program, movie, Web page, computer program, letter, advertisement, or any other medium
  • Information you gain through interviewing or conversing with another person, face to face, over the phone, or in writing
  • When you copy the exact words or a unique phrase
  • When you reprint any diagrams, illustrations, charts, pictures, or other visual materials
  • When you reuse or repost any electronically-available media, including images, audio, video, or other media

There are several types of plagiarism ranging from direct plagiarism to copyright infringement. Here is a short list of tips to help you stay honest in your work.

  1. Don't procrastinate with your research and assignments.
  2. Commit to doing your own work.
  3. Take careful notes, and collect citation information as you collect your sources.
  4. Use quotations and paraphrasing when absolutely necessary. 
  5. Ask for help.
  6. When in doubt, cite.

Citefast - Online Citation Generator

Citefast is an online citation generator that automatically formats citations in APA, MLA, and Chicago Styles.

Get Formatting and Citation Help from the Purdue OWL

The Online Writing Lab (OWL) at Purdue University houses writing resources and instructional material, and we provide these as a free service of the Writing Lab at Purdue. Students, members of the community, and users worldwide will find information to assist with many writing projects.

Use the following links to go to the APA resources at the Purdue Online Writing Lab.