How to Avoid Plagiarism:
1. Give credit to your sources of information by properly citing it. Basically, you give the name of the source and the date it was published, you then follow the proper form of the style manual for your field of study. APA or American Psychological Association is the style that our Education department uses. Below is a link to the Purdue Owl website that provides wonderful examples of APA style and it is easy to follow:
APA Citations: https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/apa_style/apa_formatting_and_style_guide/in_text_citations_the_basics.html
2. Use Quotation Marks when using a direct quote or exactly what someone has said or written or cited like a number or statistic. The American Psychological Association has a number of good examples of when to use quotation marks.
https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/citations/quotations
3. Paraphrasing is often best. Buy using your own words to describe what you have read or learned is the best way to inform your readers that you understand the information that was provided to you. You will still have to use citations to tell your reader the source of your information but you do not use quotation marks. Below are a few websites that help you to teach yourself how to paraphrase properly. It takes a bit of practice and it does not involve using a thesaurus. It involves using your own language to relay the information or ideas you have read.
Effective Paraphrasing Activities from Walden University
The Academic Success Center Learning about Paraphrasing
Kent State Summarizing and Paraphrasing Strategies
Trent University Paraphrasing and Summarizing: Putting it in Your Own Words
Paraphrasing Structure Excelsior Online Writing Lab