Learn through Instruction and Practice
Instruction covers 5 levels of difficulty. Explanations, video cases, examples, reflections, and practice with feedback are arranged from simple to complex (basic to expert levels). This instruction is designed primarily for university students and advanced high school students.
We advise you to complete all levels of instruction and try practice tests before you take a Certification Test; and/or view plagiarism patterns associated with your mistakes. If you do, you are about 5.25 times more likely to pass a Certification Test, when compared with those who ignore this instruction, practice, and feedback on their misunderstandings.
Click or touch Basic Level below, and then proceed to more difficult levels.
Basic Level: Recognize the basic difference between:
- avoiding plagiarism, and
- committing plagiarism.
Novice Level: When one source is used, recognize a proper quotation from an improper quotation:
- a proper quotation of someone else's words, and
- provision of the appropriate citation and reference.
Intermediate Level: When one source is used, recognize a proper paraphrase from an improper paraphrase:
- a proper paraphrase of someone else's words, and
- provision of the appropriate citation and reference.
Advanced Level: When one source is used, recognize various combinations of:
- proper/improper paraphrasing, and
- proper/improper quotations.
Expert Level: Put it all together. When two or more sources are used, recognize various combinations of:
- proper/improper paraphrasing,
- proper/improper quotations, and
- misleading or careless writing.
Additional Resources for Learning
- Decision table: summarizes how to determine the kind of plagiarism
- Decision support: step-by-step guide for classifying plagiarism and non-plagiarism
- Hints: classification rules for how to recognize plagiarism
- Patterns of plagiarism: examples of 15 types of plagiarism and 3 types of non-plagiarism with detailed explanations.
- Document used in the demonstration videos with color coding of elements: word-for-word quotations, paraphrasing, citation elements, and parts of references.
- Document used in the demonstration videos with no color coding: PDF illustrates proper citations for direct quotes and paraphrasing, and references in APA Style (American Psychological Association)--no color coding.