Pharmacy and Pharmacology

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The Center for Academic Integrity defines academic integrity as "a commitment, even in the face of adversity, to five fundamental values: honesty, trust, fairness, respect, and responsibility."

Click here to read more about academic integrity at the College of Pharmacy.

Plagiarism

Plagiarism is using someone else's ideas without giving them proper credit, that is, a citation in your paper.  The key to avoiding plagiarism is give credit where credit is due.

Click here to find some ways to not plagiarize.

Adapted from the Academic Integrity website, University Library.

While you can keep track of where you get information by hand (author name(s); name of article, book, web site; journal name; date of publication, volume number, page numbers), you can also use citation management software, such as Mendeley, Zotero, or EndNote to help you:

• Collect references from article databases, library catalogs, or even web pages by exporting them electronically into a citation management program.
• Organize references by project, topic, or any other way that makes sense to you.
• Insert citations and easily format citations and bibliographies in many different styles (such as APA, JAMA, Vancouver).

See the Citation Management page of this guide to learn more.

Problem:  Not properly citing sources
Solution:  Citation management software, such as Mendeley, Zotero, or EndNote. You can also carefully note citation information by hand in your research notes, then use the References function in Word to add citations.

Examples: 

When to cite:   When you have quoted someone exactly (placing the quoted material in quotation marks) or have used original information from someone else & have paraphrased it appropriately.

When you don't have to cite:  When you're reporting 1) your own original analysis of other people's original work or 2) common knowledge, that is, information that is commonly known by your peers.  Note that this can change, depending on the context of your writing assignment.

Problem:   Using someone else's ideas exactly as published.
Solutions:  Paraphrase (changing both words and sentence structure) or use the exact quotation and cite the source.

Example: 

Original text: Ethnic and racial diversity are increasing in many countries, primarily as a result of increased migration linked to globalization of trade, education and markets and to the movement of refugees.  This offers formidable challenges in the development of policies and strategies to promote the reduction in inequalities in health and improvements in health care.  From ch. 8, Raj S. Bhopal, Migration, Ethnicity, Race and Health in Multicultural Societies, 2d ed., Oxford University Press http://site.ebrary.com/lib/umich/docDetail.action?docID=10823205

Plagiarism:  Ethnic and racial diversity are on the rise in many countries, for the most part because of increased migration due to trade around the world, education and markets and to refugees. This makes it hard to develop policies and strategies to reduce inequalities in health and improvements in health care. (12).

This is plagiarism because both the words that are used and the sentence structure are very similar to the original sentence.  Providing a citation to the original source of information (the 12, at the end of the sentence) is not enough.

Acceptable:  When governments think about developing polices to decrease inequalities in health, it is important to take into account that the rise in refugees and in migration due to trade has increased the variety in racial and ethnicity in many countries. (12).

This is not plagiarism because the information has been summarized using different words and the sentence structure is different from the original text. 

Acceptable:  According to Raj S. Bhopal, the increase that we can see in diversity throughout the world of racial and ethnic groups "offers formidable challenges in the development of policies and strategies to promote the reduction in inequalities in health and improvements in health care."(12)

This is not plagiarism because a direct quote is used, with quotation marks, and  the quotation is properly cited.

Citation:  The basic, necessary information that a reader needs to locate the work.  The style (for example, APA, Vancouver, JAMA) dictates the order & format of the information, but the basic elements that are needed (title, author, publication date & so on) are generally universally used.

In-text Citation:  An attribution to quoted or summarized material used within the text of a paper.  It contains a limited amount of information that varies by style & refers (via a number or author/date combination) to more extensive information in the bibliography or reference list.

Bibliography:   A list of all the citations referred to in your paper.  It usually appears at the end of the paper.

Annotated Bibliography:  A list of the citations along with a brief summary & evaluation of each work.

Taking notes properly is a skill that can help you avoid plagiarism.

To find out more about academic integrity at the University of Michigan, follow the link below.

When creating citations, make sure you know the standard parts of a citation for different citation types.

Book