USU Libraries Avoiding Plagiarism & Citing Sources

Incorporating Others' Ideas 

Avoiding plagiarism doesn't mean you cannot include others' ideas in your work. In fact, your writing should synthesize (bring together) the research and opinions of experts in the field into a conversation with each other, while adding your ideas to the discussion. It is important that your readers understand which ideas come from you, and which ideas are from others. This is where citation comes in! Watch the video to learn how to successfully write papers that incorporate others’ ideas with your own.  

 

How Do You Incorporate Others' Ideas?

There are three main ways you can incorporate someone else's ideas in your work: 

Quoting means incorporating someone else's exact words using quotation marks. Paraphrasing means incorporating someone's ideas by rephrasing them into your own words. Summary means rephrasing someone else's main points into your own words.

We will go more in-depth about each in the next parts of the tutorial.