Avoiding plagiarism can be challenging for new and returning students. The following helpful tips below will help you think about your own academic behaviors that might contribute to plagiarism and how you can build solutions and strategies that work for you.

1. Understand Plagiarism

Start by watching the 10 Types of Plagiarism Video below. It may surprise you how many kinds of unintentional plagiarism there are.

2. Set Good Researching Habits 

Procrastination is frequently mentioned as a contributor to plagiarism and there are many reasons for this. Unintentional plagiarism mistakes are less likely to be caught when you don't have enough time to properly proofread your work. You might be more tempted to fake a citation, source, or quotation when you are stressed and operating on little sleep. The following can therefore be important things to think about incorporating into your workflows.

• Give Yourself Enough Time To Do Research and Take Good Notes When you do thorough research, have time to read, take notes and include in your notes references to your exact sources, passages, page numbers, etc. it will make the writing process easier.
• Lean On Your Support Systems Who do you need support from in order to get your best work done? Build in time and support for yourself.
• Have a study buddy or study group to help you build accountability.
• Book a research consultation to learn about citation styles or management strategies with the librarian.
• Set up a final paper and bibliography review with the Writing Studio.

3. Cite Your Sources

You've come to the right place for this one! The rest of this guide will help you with all things citation-related.

• Citation Tools Learn about some easy to use options for copying pre-generated citations on the web as you work.
• Citation Styles Use this page to create or check citations that you've gathered from citation generators.
• Zotero Set up a citation manager for an organized and efficient citation gathering and note-taking process.