Plagiarism is the unacknowledged use, as one’s own, of work of another person, whether or not such work has been published.
The way to avoid plagiarism is to acknowledge your debt to others and to give them the credit they deserve for their work.
Quoting a passage word-for-word (Direct quote)
1. For short quotes, the passage is incorporated into the text with quotation marks; and the author’s name, date of publication and page number in brackets.
Example 1:
It is stated that “in the past there has been a tendency… to assume that changes in the law and legal procedures will result automatically in desired changes in the way the system operates in practice” (King, 1981:3).
Example 2:
As King (1981:3) states, “in the past there has been a tendency… to assume that changes in the law and legal procedures will result automatically in desired changes in the way the system operates in practice.”
If there is no author, quote name of organization / name of website / name of newspaper instead.
2. For long quotes (more than four lines), the passage should be indented and separated from the main text with quotation marks and the author’s name, date of publication and page number in brackets.
*Note that you are not encouraged quoting long paragraphs in your essay unless the materials are highly relevant or important, as your essay is only a short pierce of writing.
Example:
… (main content) it is obvious as described in the following:
Too often the good intentions of the reformers have been thwarted by the capacity of interest groups to interpret and adapt would-be reforms so that they fit neatly into existing patterns of behavior. On other occasions reforming the rules has led to unforeseen and undesired changes in the behavior of those who operate the system. (King, 1981:3)
(back to the main content) …
Paraphrase or summarize the text in your own words
1. Attribute the ideas by including the author’s name, date of publication and page numbers.
Example 1:
It is argued that any potential reforms within the criminal justice system can be subverted and negated by participants in the process (King, 1981:3).
Example 2:
King (1981:3) argues that any potential reforms within the criminal justice system can be subverted and negated by participants in the process.
2. If there is no author(s), quote name of organization / name of website / name of newspaper instead.
3. If you want to quote from a person or persons you read from a book, you should quote the original author’s name in the content, whereas the name of the author of the book should be included in a bracket at the end of the sentence.
Example 1:
King argues that any potential reforms within the criminal justice system can be subverted and negated by participants in the process (Maguire and Radosh, 1999:53).
Footnotes/Endnotes
You may want to insert footnotes in your text when there are elaborations not directly related to your discussion, or you want to further explain some special terms and ideas. Footnotes are used when the source of supporting evidence came from non-English materials.
Example 1:
The French social thinker Pierre Bourdieu uses the concept ‘cultural capital’ in the discussion of the education system and social reproduction.1
(At the end of that page or the whole essay before reference section)
[1] See Bourdieu (1971, 1973, 1974), Bourdieu and Passeron (1977) for the discussions of cultural capital in relation to education.
Example 2:
In Shae’s study, what students hate most is ‘bending’1 by teachers.
(At the end of that page or the whole essay/report before reference section)
[1] ‘Bend’ (屈) is a literally translation from a Cantonese slang. Shae explains that this is largely similar to ‘framing’ in English. To ‘bend’ someone is to force something (e.g. a label or blame) upon him/her or to trap someone against his interest (1994: 325).
Example 3:
When we look at the curves of labour market participation rate in Hong Kong since 1960s, women’s rates always started to drop when they reach their 20s while men’s rates keep stable at around 70% until their 50s.1
(At the end of that page or the whole essay before reference section)
[1] 2000 census data (潘毅, 吳俊雄 2003)
Bibliography/Reference
This is an alphabetical list of all references you’ve used (including quotations or paraphrases in the content, graphs/charts/tables/diagrams/photographs, footnotes/endnotes, appendixes, etc.) in your work. This should appear at the end of your essay.
Different sources of references have different formats as follows:
Format For Books:
Abbott, P., and C. Wallace. 1990. An Introduction to Sociology: Feminist Perspectives. London: Routledge.
Ball, S. 1981. Beachside Comprehensive. Cambridge University Press.
Rose, S. et al. 1984. Not in Our Genes. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
For Edited Books:
Bilton, T. et al (eds.). 2002. Introductory Sociology, 4th ed. Basingstoke: Palgrave.
Burgess, R. G.. (ed.). 1982. Field Research: A Sourcebook and Field Manual. London: Allen & Unwin.
For Articles in Books or Journals:
Hanmer, J. 1993. Women and reproduction. In D. Richardson and V. Robinson (eds.), Introducing Women’s Studies: Feminist Theory and Practice. Basingstoke: Macmillan.
McGahan, P. 1992. Public awareness of policing initiatives, Canadian Police College Journal 16(1): 24-26.
For Articles in Newspapers:
South China Morning Post, 17 April 2003, “Against All Odds”.
South China Morning Post, 4 October 2005, “Campaign Encourages Students To Volunteer For Mentor Programme”, by May Chan.
For Websites:
Dead Sociologists’ Society. http://www2.pfeiffer.edu/~lridener/DSS/INDEX.HTML, browsed on 18 April 2003.
The University of Hong Kong, “What is Plagiarism?” http://www.hku.hk/plagiarism/ browsed on 6 April 2005.
For References in Chinese:
婦女團體爭取平等繼承權聯席, 「從這一天開始」. 1995.
謝均才編｡ 2002｡ 《我們的地方 我們的時間 : 香港社會新編》｡ 香港 : 香港牛津大學出版社｡
潘毅、吳俊雄｡ 2003｡「就業」收於洪雪蓮、馮國堅編《香港婦女檔案2003增修版》｡ 香港 : 婦進｡
明報｡ 2004年7月23日｡「天水圍慘案警監主席：嚴謹處理」
Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com
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