Expert: Rosemary Lenc - 5/20/2009

Question
QUESTION: If you have a report to do and you have to research articles online for it and you reword the article so that you can put it in your report so for example:"The child,running fastly,tripped.Due to the injury,the child went to the hospital.")If I reworded it to say "Running hurridly,the child tripped.This resulted to having to take the child to the hospital.",would this be okay.Would it be okay if it is in the same order and says almost the same thing,just in different wording?Would this be plagiarism?

ANSWER: Dear Corrina,
When you research articles and you are not sure if you are guilty of plagiarism, you can always, even if you are putting the idea in your own words, cite the source.  BUT the best way is to read the source and then close it and think about how you could say it in your own words.
Here is a site that will show you what to do to paraphrase ideas so you are not guilty of plagiarism.
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/589/03/

Thanks for using AllExperts.
Mrs. Lenc

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Well I already did the report,I haven't turned it in yet.I am going to make a bibliography but is this plagiarism though?

Answer
Dear Corrina,
When you read something, you need to think about what you read and then reword it in your own words.  You might have said instead " The child went to the hospital because he fell.  (Therefore you are not putting it in the order or in the same words.)  But as I said above, if you are not sure, you can always cite the source and then you can't be guilty of plagiarism.  So if you still question what you said because of the order, I would cite the source and you will have no problems.

Thanks for using AllExperts.
Mrs. Lenc