Integrating Quotations, Paraphrasing and Summarizing without Plagiarizing. When you write analytical, research and argumentative papers you use other people s words and ideas. You make use of other people s information and words when you quote, paraphrase, or summarize information that you found in doing your research, or in analyzing a literary work. To use others ideas and words untruthfully and irresponsibly is Unethical . - To deliberately and knowingly use them as if they were your own is to steal someone else s intellectual property .
Plagiarism is theft, piracy, and is generally a criminal activity.
While it may occur in both the workplace and in academia, the result is usually that you are fired in one way or another. This way the reader knows where the other writer s information begins and ends, and there is no confusion about whether it is theirs or yours. Likewise, the addition of identification of the speaker and context, before the quotation helps the reader know who is the source. You may provide the contextual introduction either before the source material, in the middle of it , or following it. Once you use another person s words or ideas you must discuss them.