Only for Professor Anthony

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Citations and Style Guide:

What follows here is a guide for students, unfamiliar with what constitutes plagiarism, to

help them avoid problems with academic dishonesty. This guide provides different

examples of plagiarism, as well as advice on how students can properly incorporate

information into their paper without plagiarizing their sources.

For the purposes of our example, a student is writing a paper on mid-nineteenth century

Irish politics and wants to use the following information. Read the passage and the four

examples given below.

Original Passage:

The Great Famine, the collapse of the repeal movement and the failure of the 1848 rising

meant that the 1840s were a watershed in the social, economic and political development

of Ireland. After 1850 the Irish population was greatly reduced, while the poor were

dispirited, demoralized and exhausted. Not surprisingly, Irishmen living outside Ireland

largely inspired much of the initiative, energy and resources for the next wave of

nationalist activity. For Irish Americans in particular, anger at having been forced to

leave their country of birth combined with the prejudice and alienation they experienced

in the United States.

- passage taken from Christine Kinealy, A New History of Ireland (Gloucestershire: Sutton Publishing, 2004), 171.

To properly make use of the information in this passage, the student must do two things:

a. provide a citation directing the reader to the source of the information (a footnote that includes bibliographic information and the page number)

b. either place the relevant sections of the text in quotation marks, or extensively paraphrase the passage, fundamentally changing its narrative structure.

Here are some examples, drawn from the above passage, of improper academic practice,

and why each would constitute plagiarism:

Example 1:

The Fenian movement emerged as a result of significant changes in nineteenth-century

Irish nationalism. The Great Famine, the collapse of the repeal movement and the

failure of the 1848 rising meant that the 1840s were a watershed in the social, economic

and political development of Ireland. The movement was born in 1858 with the

establishment of the Irish Republican Brotherhood in Dublin and the Fenian

Brotherhood in New York City.

Why this is improper form: the second sentence in this example is copied directly from

the original passage above, with no footnote, no quotation marks, and no effort to

paraphrase. It amounts to directly copying the original source with no credit given to the

author.

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Example 2:

The Fenian movement emerged as a result of significant changes in nineteenth-century

Irish nationalism. “The Great Famine, the collapse of the repeal movement and the

failure of the 1848 rising meant that the 1840s were a watershed in the social, economic

and political development of Ireland.” The movement was born in 1858 with the

establishment of the Irish Republican Brotherhood in Dublin and the Fenian

Brotherhood in New York City.

Why this is improper form: the student has properly placed the direct quote from

Kinealy in quotation marks. However, there is no citation directing the reader to the

original source, and as such, the student has not given proper credit to the author.

Example 3:

The Fenian movement emerged as a result of significant changes in nineteenth-century

Irish nationalism. The Great Famine, the collapse of the repeal movement and the

failure of the 1848 rising meant that the 1840s were a watershed in the social, economic

and political development of Ireland (Kinealy, A New History of Ireland, 171). The

movement was born in 1858 with the establishment of the Irish Republican Brotherhood

in Dublin and the Fenian Brotherhood in New York City.

Why this is improper form: the student has given a proper citation crediting the author;

however, the student has copied the sentence directly from the original, with no quotation

marks or effort to paraphrase. To be clear: it is NOT sufficient to merely provide a

citation. If the student has copied the text from the original, or has not properly

paraphrased it, the student has

Example 4:

The Fenian movement emerged as a result of significant changes in nineteenth-century

Irish nationalism. The Famine, the failure of the repeal movement and the defeat of the

1848 rising meant that the 1840s were a turning point in Ireland’s social, economic and

political development (Kinealy, A New History of Ireland, 171). The movement was born

in 1858 with the establishment of the Irish Republican Brotherhood in Dublin and the

Fenian Brotherhood in New York City.

Why this is improper form: this is the most common issue students face when

determining how to integrate research material into their essays. In this example, the

student has provided the citation crediting the author, and has not directly copied the

passage. However, compare it to the original passage and note that the student has NOT

paraphrased it: a number of words have been changed (failure instead of collapse, defeat

instead of failure, turning point instead of watershed, etc.) but the basic narrative

structure has been retained. The passage is still too close to the original.

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Example 5:

The Fenian movement emerged as a result of significant changes in nineteenth-century

Irish nationalism. The mid-nineteenth century was “a watershed in the social, economic

and political development of Ireland,” with the strength of Irish nationalist activity

undermined by the calamity of the Great Famine and the twin political defeats of Daniel

O’Connell’s repeal movement and the Young Ireland uprising of 1848 (A New History of

Ireland, 171). The momentum of Irish nationalism moved across the Atlantic to the

United States, where Irish Americans provided much of the political and financial

support for Irish revolutionary activity in the latter half of the nineteenth century.

Why this is correct form: The student has mixed in a direct quotation with paraphrasing

of Kinealy’s passage. In this example, the citation comes at the end of the sentence with

the direct quote; otherwise, the citation would properly be placed at the end of the

paragraph.

Quotations:

If you quote more than two lines of a passage, you need to centre it and single-space it in your own essay. For example:

The movement of people from Ontario to the Prairie West began in

earnest in the 1870s as pioneer settlers returned home with tales of

Manitoba’s agricultural potential. Nellie McClung described how the return of

one settler, Michael Lowrey, inspired others to move west to Manitoba:

The young people kindled to the picture young Michael painted – they could see the sea of grass and the friendly skies above it, and they could feel the intoxication of being the first to plant the seed in that mellow black loam, enriched by a million years of rain and sun (McClung, Clearing in the West, 31).

Convinced by Lowrey’s account, McClung’s brother Will homesteaded in

Manitoba in 1879, followed by the rest of the family a year later.

As a general rule, avoid quotations whenever possible: excessive reliance on quotations completely disrupts the narrative flow of an essay because the writing

constantly shifts back and forth between the student’s voice and the quoted source.

Students should paraphrase more often than not, reserving quotes ONLY for cases

where the exact words used by the author are important to convey your meaning; in

the overwhelming majority of cases, paraphrasing is a better option.

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Always introduce quotes with your own words. Drawing again on example two from above:

The Fenian movement emerged as a result of significant changes in nineteenth-

century Irish nationalism. “The Great Famine, the collapse of the repeal movement

and the failure of the 1848 rising meant that the 1840s were a watershed in the

social, economic and political development of Ireland” (Kinaely, A New History of

Ireland, 171).

The second sentence here consists of a full-sentence quote, not introduced by the

student’s own words. Use something like this instead:

The Fenian movement emerged as a result of significant changes in nineteenth-

century Irish nationalism. Profound changes including “the Great Famine, the collapse

of the repeal movement and the failure of the 1848 rising” made the mid-nineteenth

century “a watershed in the social, economic and political development of Ireland.”

(Kinaely, A New History of Ireland, 171).

All essays need a bibliography or works cited list.

The title page should not be counted as page one of the essay: page numbers should appear at the top or bottom of all other pages, with the first page of text counted as

page one.

Do not place extra double-spaces between paragraphs.

Students are strongly advised to consult a style guide: the best available is the Chicago

Manual of Style (15 th

edition). Multiple copies are available in the Rutherford Library.

What follows here is a list of some of the most common errors made in student essays,

but students are encouraged to consult a style guide when concerned about other writing

issues.

it’s vs. its: it’s is a contraction for “it is”; thus, “The FLQ published its manifesto” rather than “The FLQ published it’s manifesto.”

Capitalization: when using political titles, capitalize only as part of a proper title: for example, use capitals for Prime Minister Robert Borden, but not when writing Robert

Borden, prime minister of Canada, or the prime minister.

Dates: dates are always written in numeric form (1986) except when starting a sentence: when starting a sentence with a date, write it out fully (nineteen-eighty six).

Because this is somewhat cumbersome, try to avoid starting sentences with dates.

Numbers: numbers from zero to one hundred should be written out, as should round numbers (for example, five hundred), while others should be written in numeric form.

And as with dates, numbers used at the start of a sentence should be spelled out.

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Proper Citations: Examples:

Footnotes:

Books:

Christine Kinealy, A New History of Ireland (New York: Oxford Press, 2008), 67-75.

Articles:

Eric Williams, “Testing the Chains: Slave Uprisings in Barbados, 1657-1740,” Journal of

Caribbean History 45:3 (June 1976), 55-58.

**note: use the full version of the footnote the first time you use the source; after that,

you can shorten it like this:

Kinealy, A New History of Ireland, 145.

Williams, “Testing the Chains,” 67.

Bibliography:

Books:

Kinealy, Christine. A New History of Ireland. New York: Oxford Press, 2008.

Articles:

Williams, Eric. “Testing the Chains: Slave Uprisings in Barbados, 1657-1740.” Journal

of Caribbean History, 45:3 (June 1976): 54-80 (**all the pages in the article, not just the

ones you cited)