Copy and Paste/Partial Plagiarism

• Copy and aste, or partial, plagiarism is one of the most common and obvious. This is the same idea as copying and pasting something from the Internet; you take entire sections from the original text, paste them in to your paper and fail to reference them. Even if you break up the sections taken and add your own material in between, it is still plagiarism if you don't source it. This is a very easy method of plagiarism to detect by using plagiarism software or even entering sections of text in to Google search. To avoid this, use quotation marks or paraphrase the information. This is also the same thing as "forgetting" to footnote.
  
  

Patchworking/Complete Plagiarism

• Complete plagiarism and patchworking are very similar types of plagiarism. Complete plagiarism can mean taking everything from one or more sources, while patchworking means using multiple sources and putting them all together as your own. Both of them retain most of the original wording and even if they are referenced, it is still plagiarism because there is no original content in the paper, just borrowed ideas you have coherently fit together to look like your own. This is avoided by having your own opinion about a topic and supporting it with borrowed materials using references and quotations.
  
  

Word Switch

• Word switching is when you take a passage and switch some of the words, examples or phrases, but keep the same essential content --- it is still plagiarism. For example, "Dogs have an extraordinary sense of smell that far exceeds that of humans," is the same as "Dogs have an excellent sense of smell that is much better than that of humans." A few words have changed, but the essence is still the same, so the second sentence is a plagiarized version of the first, if it is not referenced.
  
  

Ghost Writing

• Having somebody else write your paper and claiming it as your own may seem like a gray area in plagiarism because it has never been published before and you are paying for a service, but it is still plagiarism. Remember, you are taking another person's ideas and not giving him credit. There are many sites online that offer essay writing services and people have lost their university degrees for using them.
  
  

Self-Plagiarism

• Self-plagiarism doesn't seem like plagiarism because you are using something that you have written. If you use something that you have written in a previous paper, you must still reference it. Most universities, like the University of Sussex, do not even allow students to use the same paper for two different courses or the same course the following year. In other schools, like Baruch College, you must ask for permission to do so.