Some tips to avoid going from quotations ...to plagiarism

1. A definition of plagiarism
2. Properly identifying your what you have borrowed
   1. Why
   2. How
      • Identify the quotation
      • Identify rephrasing
      • Compiling a bibliography
   3. Is it always necessary to use a quotation?
3. To explore this issue ...
   1. Standards
   2. Reference sites

Plagiarism : Definition

The free encyclopedia Wikipedia gives the following definition of plagiarism :

"Plagiarism is defined in dictionaries as "the wrongful appropriation, close imitation, or purloining and publication, of another author's language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions, and the representation of them as one's own original work.""

Though plagiarism in some contexts is considered theft or stealing, from the point of view of the law, it is a non-existing concept. "Plagiarism" is not mentioned in any current statute, either criminal or civil. Some cases may be treated as unfair competition or a violation of the doctrine of moral rights.

The increased availability of intellectual property due to a rise in technology has furthered the debate as to whether copyright offences are criminal. In short, people are asked to use the guideline, "...if you did not write it yourself, you must give credit."

Identify what you have borrowed

Why

The right to quote comes with a duty : the duty of identifying your quotations.
This identification is made in respect of certain agreements, the most obvious being using quotation marks.

The rules of identifying quotations allows the reader to :

1. See where the quotations are in the text..
   It is then possible to differentiate between words and ideas of which you are the author and those which should be credited to a third party.
2. Refer directly to your source to:
   • Check the integrity of your quotation (no changes)
   • Verify the completeness of your quote (no deletion of texts that could change the meaning of the sentence)
   • Check the relevance of your quotation in comparison to your remarks and to the initial comments of the author
   • Deepen your comments by allowing the reader to study your reference texts if he wishes.

By failing to identify your quotes, you give the impression that you have not done any research, and have even tried to take ownership of others work.
However, properly identifying your quotations allows your reader to appreciate the richness of your research, the quality of your analytical mind and accuracy of your personal analysis.

How

Identify a quotation

When using a quotation in a text, the rules require that you:

1. Put quotation marks
   « your text »
2. Use square brackets and three dots to cut out part of a quotation that you see as pointless.
   [...]
3. Respect the original punctuation, capital letters, bold or italics even if there are mistakes!

Each quotation must also be referenced to the original work.

• directly in the text with information about the author and the date of publication :

Example
"According to a study by The Bank of America, [...] more people are likely to think that cars manufactured by the Japanese are better designed than those of GM, Ford or Chrysler. "(Arnaud Dumas, 2007)



• and / or by inserting a reference to a footnote at the bottom of the page.
  This note contains more information about the book such as the author, title, publication date, page number ... :

  Example
  "According to a study by The Bank of America, [...] more people are likely to think that cars manufactured by the Japanese are better designed than those of GM, Ford or Chrysler. "(1)
  
  (1) Arnaud Dumas, The conditions of a French "comeback", The New Factory, 2007, p26
  The latter is used mainly in social studies.

Identify rephrasing (paraphrase)

If you are paraphrasing, you do not only have to find synonyms for each word used by the author. You must fully review the syntax and put in quotation marks every word of the author that you use.
And in any case, you will not forget to cite the source, as in the previous example!

Bibliographic reference

When writing your bibliography, the following rules are applied depending on the nature of the source:

Book

Must appear in the order of Surname ,Christian Name, Title, Edition number, Place, Publisher, Year of publication, Number of pages.

Example
Moore, Geoffrey A. Crossing the Chasm. 1 ed. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2006, 227 p.

Review

Surname, Christian Name. "Article Title." Title of periodical, fecha de publicación, volumen, número, paginación.

Example
ANDREAU, Sylvie - "The managers sentenced to growth" - L'Usine Nouvelle - 11th of January, 2007, No. 3037, p 62-67

Oral or ephemeral sources

AUTHOR of report, "Title of report," Title of congress, date of Congress, place of congress.

Example
Marie-Hélène Delmond. "From the know-how of the hierarchal company to knowing how to manage a network company: the case of outsourcing IT services." Proceedings of the 3rd Congress IFSAM, 8-11 July 1996, Paris.

Website

SURNAME, Christian Name or ORGANISATION, Title of the Site, Accessed DD / MM / YYYY at

Example
Olivier Dumon, Le Monde. "The great French Internet user filtering will start soon"
accessed on 10/06/2008 at http://www.lemonde.fr/technologies/article/2008/06/06/
le-grand-filtrage-des-internautes-francais-va-bientot-commencer
_1055014_651865.html#ens_id=1048963

Each element should be separated by coherent punctuation.

 

Is it always necessary to use quotation?

The use of quotation is not justified when you state a fact generally known or published by multiple sources.

However, it is necessary when:

• You repeat the words of others
• You reproduce the ideas of others
• You include in your production visual or audio elements of which you are not the author

To explore this issue

Standards

The ISO standards define the rules for identifying citations and presentation of bibliographical references..

1. ISO 690:1987
   Documentation - Bibliographical references: content, form and structure
   Standardization of the 27th of August, 1987, by the Technical Committee TC 46/SC 9
2. ISO 832:1994
   Information and documentation - Bibliographical description and references - Rules for the abbreviation of bibliographical terms
   Standardization of the 24th of November, 1994, by the Technical Committee TC 46/SC 9
3. ISO 690-2:1997
   Information and documentation - Bibliographical references, Part 2: Electronic documents, complete documents or parts of documents
   Standardization of the 6th of November, 1997, by the Technical Committee TC 46/SC 9
4. ISO 12615:2004
   Bibliographical references and source identifiers for terminology work
   Standardization of the 6th of December, 2004, by the Technical Committee TC 37/SC 2

A few reference sites

Many institutions are implementing an educational support system for their students.
You will find some useful addresses on this page .