How to avoid plagiarism.

Chapter 7 of Envision

Chapter 7 of Envision starts out by explaining rhetorical imitation and intellectual property. Rhetorical Imitation is the practice of taking after others. Intellectual property is the ideas that best belong to someone else.

Did you know that plagiarism, or using the ideas of somebody else, wasn’t a crime in classical times? This is according to Peter Morgan and Glenn Reynolds, anyway. But with the invention of the printing press, copyright laws came into play. And thus became the coined term plagiarism! Not plagiarizing is a part of the respect principle. If you keep the respect principle, you will rarely fall into the trap of accidently stealing somebody’s work.

To avoid unintentional plagiarism, you need to keep in mind that you are contributing to a conversation with other writers. Also, develop effective ways of taking notes while reading through your sources.

Citing your sources sometimes isn’t enough citation—if you’re writing a book or planning to publish your contribution. You need to pay to use the contribution of the quote or material.

The book describes four different documentation styles. It describes MLA, APA, CSE, and Chicago format.

MLA format stands for the Modern Language Association. It’s used with writing literature, philosophy and is used by humanities scholars and teachers.

APA format stands for the American psychological Association and is used by psychologists and social scientists.

CSE format stands for the Council of Science Editors and is used for biology and physics.

Chicago format stands for the University of Chicago. This is used by business writers, professional writers, and those in fine arts.

The book also tells you how to cite definitions, government publications, interviews, e-mail, and even Facebook, Tweet, and chat room discussions. Which, I find that really neat that you can quote Facebook.