Barnet and Bedau define plagiarism as "the unacknowledged use of someone else's work" (88). Stating that the word comes from a Latin word meaning "kidnapping," they emphasize that plagiarism "is not limited to the unacknowledged quotation of words": Even when you change every third word in your source, and you do not give the author credit, you are plagiarizing.

Here is an example of this sort of plagiarism based on the previous sentence:

Even if you alter every third or fourth word from your source, and you fail to give credit to the author, you will be guilty of plagiarism.

Even if a source had been cited after this paraphrase, the writer would still be guilty of plagiarism, because the passage borrows not only the idea but the shape of the presentation, the sentence structure. The writer of this passage hasn't really written anything; he or she has only adapted something.

What the writer needs to do is to write something like this:

Changing an occasional word does not free the writer from the obligation to cite a source.

And the source would still need to be cited (86-87).

A handout distributed to all freshmen at Emory offers a specific definition of what constitutes "someone else's work." It asserts that "a writer's facts, ideas, and phraseology should be regarded as his or her property. Any person who uses a writer's ideas or Phraseology without giving due credit is guilty of Plagiarism" (Use of Sources).

This handout's useful discussion of plagiarism is reproduced below:

Information may be put into a paper without a [citation] or some kind of documentation if it meets all of the following conditions: It may be found in several books on the subject. It is written entirely in the words of the student. It is not paraphrased from any particular source. It therefore belongs to common knowledge. Generally, if a student writes while looking at a source or while looking at notes taken from a source, a footnote should be given . . . The student is entirely responsible for knowing and following the principles of paraphrasing as outlined by Watkins, Dillingham and Martin, in the Practical English Handbook: "In paraphrasing you are expressing the ideas of another writer in your own words. A good paraphrase preserves the sense of the original, but not the form. It does not retain the original words and merely alter the sentence patterns. It is a genuine restatement.

Invariably it should be briefer than the source" (245). Any direct quotation should be [cited]... Even when a student uses only one unusual or key word from a passage, that word should be quoted... The source of every quotation should be given in a [citation].

To test your paraphrasing skills, try this exercise on paraphrasing properly.