APA guideline on how to acknowledge a source if you are using someone else’s exact words (from attached PDF):

If use the same words as the original author (or authors) it is called a direct quote and you must communicate this to your readers. If you are using another person’s words, but fail to indicate that you are doing so, it can be considered plagiarism even if you include a parenthetical reference at the end of the passage. As a rule of thumb, whenever you are using more than five of another writer’s words in the same order as that writer, you should consider it a direct quote and acknowledge the

original writer. To acknowledge the writer, you need to use either quotation marks or a block quote.

The length of the quotation determines which one is appropriate.

If your quotation is less than 40 words long, the other person’s words should be enclosed in quotation marks and integrated into the rest of your paragraph. If you mention the author’s name when you introduce the quotation, you should follow their name with the year of publication in parentheses. At the end of the quotation, you should also include the page number on which the words originally appeared.

If your quotation is more than 40 words, it should be presented in the form of a block quote.

That is, the quotation is formatted as its own paragraph. Each line of this paragraph is indented five spaces. The page number, along with the author’s name and the publication year.

http://decade.it.usf.edu/stpete/lib_modules/AvoidPlagiarismAPA/AvoidPlagiarismAPA_print.html

The reference quoted is useful to compare the original reference to what you found. However, in a paper is not recommended to use many quotes, because it is plagiarism. Of course, ALWAYS using the reference.

The explanation of Berhrouz is perfect.

During my academic life, I have heard about plagiarism and how to not do it, but I didn't hear too much about paraphrasing . I think that most of time it is just a matter of lack of practice from students and researches in paraphrasing others work. I really think that if all universities had a strong course about 'paraphrasing' the problem of plagiarism will reduce dramatically.

APA guideline on how to acknowledge a source if you are using someone else’s exact words (from attached PDF):

If use the same words as the original author (or authors) it is called a direct quote and you must communicate this to your readers. If you are using another person’s words, but fail to indicate that you are doing so, it can be considered plagiarism even if you include a parenthetical reference at the end of the passage. As a rule of thumb, whenever you are using more than five of another writer’s words in the same order as that writer, you should consider it a direct quote and acknowledge the

original writer. To acknowledge the writer, you need to use either quotation marks or a block quote.

The length of the quotation determines which one is appropriate.

If your quotation is less than 40 words long, the other person’s words should be enclosed in quotation marks and integrated into the rest of your paragraph. If you mention the author’s name when you introduce the quotation, you should follow their name with the year of publication in parentheses. At the end of the quotation, you should also include the page number on which the words originally appeared.

If your quotation is more than 40 words, it should be presented in the form of a block quote.

That is, the quotation is formatted as its own paragraph. Each line of this paragraph is indented five spaces. The page number, along with the author’s name and the publication year.

http://decade.it.usf.edu/stpete/lib_modules/AvoidPlagiarismAPA/AvoidPlagiarismAPA_print.html

Plagiarism can only be linked to a mental state, not an act.

E.g. People could have exactly the same idea at distant places without knowing this from one another, or the person that publishes first is not necessarily the person that had the idea?

How often are these mental states truly accessible? 

It's better to use the tearm similarity

Since it can be unintentional

By the way, you can quote a reference without having access to the mental states of the people that contributed to the reference...

@ Dear Dr. Abhijit Mitra,

At first, I should appreciate you for sharing your question. After that, I think that American Psychological Association (APA) Style which Dr. Behrouz Ahmadi-Nedushan mentioned, is a prolific reference for this issue.

@ Dear Dr. Behrouz Ahmadi-Nedushan, 

Thank you for your complete guidance.

Regards,

Mehdi

Avoiding Plagiarism! Some more experience from MIT!

"Quotation: A quotation must use the exact words of the source. If the quotation is relatively short (usually fewer than 3 lines or 40 words), those words must be enclosed in quotation marks.

Longer quotations are given in block quotations...

Paraphrase: To paraphrase is to put the ideas in a passage into our own words, usually following the order in which the ideas were presented in the original. All major ideas are included. Usually a paraphrase is a bit shorter than the original, but when terms or concepts have to be defined, a paraphrase might actually be longer. Any paraphrase requires the same kind of citation as an exact quotation..."

http://cmsw.mit.edu/writing-and-communication-center/avoiding-plagiarism/

Dear all,

I read through the discussion so far but unfortunately I do not get the point what you all are discussing about (no disrespect meant) - I actually don't even understand the question because plagiarism is defined as KNOWINGLY present someone else's ideas/work as your own.

So, if you give a citation about something, you don't claim that it was you who came up with it in the first place --> no plagiat

If you don't give any citation but claim that it's entirely your work, there are two possiblities: It was done on purpose or by accident. To distinguish, which of the two cases apply is actually very easy as, again, there are two possibilities:

1) two people published their work at nearly the same time (like Newton and Leibniz did with the differential calculus) --> highly improbable that it is a plagiat, because even for plagiarism you need a certain time to copy the work of the other guy (if it is exactly the same - the one who handed it in first to the journal, etc... is the real originator).

2) There is a considerable amount of time between the original work and the copy. In this case, it was copied either on purpose --> plagiat

or by accident --> no plagiat but still scientifically invalid because the author did a very poor job in literature research.

Right! 

I agree with Mr. Johannes Gruenwald. If anyone reasonably quotes and gives the source, it can not be attributed to the appropriation of foreign ideas. It's worse now with the fact that something similar has already been published. It is virtually impossible to read everything in your field.

Behrouze has discussed the issue in detail and addressed all components. As far as the answer of specific question is concerned, In my opinion, it is the moral duty of every researcher to assign due credit to original writer. If, somebody copy several sentences of a writer and acknowledge at one place, which reflect that he didn't cited properly and he is guilty for plagiarism.

In Indian reference we may find it difficult, but in International context it has been applying in the same manner.

I can understand the term PLAGIARISM to equal cheating. But it is not fair to call self-PLAGIARISM as cheating specially if one has published many papers and referring to his/her previous published work without citation, quotation, ... So PLAGIARISM has different levels. Like answers in RG. Some copy&past from Internet without any link, some provide link only, some re-write and make it to look original, some appreciate the original writer.  

Anyway It is not a big issue any more. With available software in publishers hand many of these PLAGIARISM acts and overlapping sentences can be detected.

The general ethical principle would say that if the original source is quoted, there is no plagiarism. However, if a text turns out to be a sum of appointments and more if they come from a single source, then it will be a disguised plagiarism. In addition, think of original ideas may have been previously exposed by another author, without citing ignorance of it or to take advantage of the silence to appear as his own idea. Beyond the doctrinaire, there is nevertheless a problem of how to operationalize the concept of plagiarism to control its occurrence and then enter attempts to measure the length of a note or a multuiplicidad of references in a text, but this is no more an effort to standardize the application of the concept, is not something inherent in the concept itself.

Out institute have the following plagiarism policy regarding Dissertation/Thesis submission.

http://www.iitr.ac.in/academics/uploads/File/2013/pilgri03012013.pdf

The truth is a good way to avoid the plairism. there are rules to utilise usage of quotation. The following link may be useful for this issue:

http://isites.harvard.edu/icb/icb.do?keyword=k70847&pageid=icb.page342057

With due respect to all researchers, the problem is scanning of words by plagiarism software although references are there. In APA style it works but where other styles like ACS, where references are numbered it will not work, So i think plagiarism is actually is scanning of words not the work of others, Thanks you

Academic plagiarism is a serious offence. As explained by Behrouz Ahmadi-Nedushan , above, it is not enough to simply acknowledge the source - in a footnote or otherwise. If it is an exact quote you need to indicate this by way of parenthesis and quotation marks as per the citation style that you are using. Even if you paraphrase the quote but it remains distinctly similar  it is still considered to be plagiarism. So one needs to be extremely careful. 

As for plagiarism checking software tools I personally find these  to be nuisance because they capture everything, standard words and phrases, statutory refs. and even footnotes giving citations.

I believe in this IT age the rules for plagiarism need to be reviewed. 

Agreed with Gita Radhakrishna, rules should be review. 

Thank you for the information @Behrouz Ahmadi-Nedushan.

Meanwhile, I get worried when you subject your work to some plagiarism software and the word like "and" and some common words are flagged as being plagiarized.

Just summarized in your own simple language.

Plagiarism can take a broad range of forms. At its simplest and most extreme, plagiarism involves putting one's own name on someoneelse's work; this is commonly seen in schools when a student submits a paper that someone else has written. Schools, colleges, and universities usually have explicit guidelines for reviewing and punishing plagiarism by students and faculty members. In copyright lawsuits, however, allegations of plagiarism are more often based on partial theft. It is not necessary to exactly duplicate another's work in order to infringe a copyright: it is sufficient to take a substantial portion of the copyrighted material. Thus, for example, plagiarism can include copying language or ideas from another novelist, basing a new song in large part on another's musical composition, or copying another artist's drawing or photograph.

For more information you can refer to the following link

http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Plagiarism

Reference sources must always be quoted whether you use one or more points from the source is immaterial.

However, as I understand, verbatim quote of a sentence or two within quote marks from referenced source to make a point is NOT plagiarism.

A verbatim reproduction of lengthy paragraph/s is certainly so, even if reference is quoted.

The right way to do is to use the information from the source and without twisting the main point state it in own words (if one is convinced about that point) and if it is relevant to the subject matter of the paper.

-Parimal

Quoting reference is not enough, but how you express the quoted information. It should be noted the quoted information has to be recast in different way yet conveying same information according to the flow of your write up. This is my personal impression.

I ever asked same question, citing a reference indicates the source of the information (which is fundamental) while restructuring the sentences indicates the researcher originality. Be that as it may, one must cite correctly and not only that, one must rearrange the grammatical structure to be free from plagiarism issue.

Plagerisim is the most serious academic pathway that should be more seriously treated than it is currently.

This series I am responding to has at least one problem relating to this: I am asked whether or not a given publication is authored by three authors. A, B, and C.

The fact is that B and C (me) are the authors but A is not and there is no way I can correct this. Whether it is plagerism instigated by accident, author (A), or by the publisher may not be determined, but it presents a problem and sh0uld be corrected by the publisher.

400 Wesley drive, Apt 454, Asheville, NC 28803

Plagiarism is a major concern. In Botswana with the internet, students just lift whatever there is and claim it's their own. What I fail to understand is why there is a general feeling that one cannot have an original idea? Sometimes I like to write what I know which is termed as opinions by my colleagues; but this may be based on experience, observation and other factors. When I write papers usually I try to use my own words then refer to literature to substantiate what I have put down. This way I attempt to avoid plagiarism. I don't know if this is the proper way to write but I'm very wary of taking people's words as they are!! I hope this helps.

Dear Sir 

at first time I thought that  Plagiarism is a major concern for me , but after that I found that its also another way for learning.

Regards

Raid

First thing first, what is plagiarism: Taking someones work or ideas and present them as your own and use them for your own benefit without acknowledging the owner. If you quote someones work word for word or paraphrase the idea  and cite the sources within the document and in the reference section, that's fair enough, it cant be regarded as plagiarism. but failing to justify what those ideas are doing in your work, whether they are supporting your ideas/topic or they are against your ideas/your topic and how are they supporting or are against your ideas/topic then that's another issue of not bring your ideas fourth and justifying them. in other words you have just compiled other peoples work and submitted them, not as your own work but as their work because you have clearly cited and referenced the work clearly showing that its not you work and for that your should not be given any credit. One other thing when talking about plagiarism or you want to understand plagiarism, is for you to understand what is regarded as common knowledge and what is not regarded as common knowledge.

Correct me if am wrong.

Thanks in advance.

The issue of plagiarism centres around the need for academic honesty and ethics.

So it not limited to just copying a few words. It extends to ideas, language, expressions, opinions etc.

So even if you paraphrase the ideas expressed by different authors in a dozen articles, all sources must be acknowledged.

Various contributors here  have shared some excellent resources on what amounts to plagiarism and how to avoid it. You will find these immensely beneficial.