Noreen Reale Falcone Library: Academic Integrity Tutorial: Quoting

If you quote correctly, you avoid plagiarism!

Quoting involves using exact words, phrases and sentences from a source, setting them off with quotation marks, and where the information was taken from. Let's look at some examples together:

Below is a passage taken from Leslie Berestein's article "Healthy or Not, the Hookah Habit is Hot," which appeared in the January 27, 2003 issue of Time magazine, volume 161, issue 4.

For centuries, men in the Middle East have gathered around hookahs to puff fruit-scented smoke, talk and pass the time. In the West, however, the water pipe became synonymous with drug culture in the 1960s, an association that lingers. But in the past couple of years, the hookah has been resurrected in youth-oriented coffeehouses, restaurants and bars, supplanting the cigar as the tobacco fad of the moment.

Is this QUOTE that follows plagiarism?

Men in the Mid East have used hookahs to puff smoke for centuries. The "hookah" has been resurrected today in coffeehouses, restaurants and bars "supplanting the cigar as the tobacco fad of the moment."

Yes, this is plagiarism:
Notice the writer of this passage liberally borrows words, phrases and parts of sentences from the Berestein passage (even quoting parts) but gives no indication of where the information came from. Even if the Berestein book is cited at the end of the paper in the works cited page, there is no indication that this particular passage came from the book. This information has been stolen or plagiarized from Berestein.

Is this QUOTE that follows plagiarism?

According to Leslie Berestein (2003), the Middle Eastern water pipe known as the hookah recently "has been resurrected in youth-oriented coffeehouses, restaurants and bars, supplanting the cigar as the tobacco fad of the moment" (p. 10).

No, this is not plagiarism.

The writer uses American Psychological Association (APA) style to cite the author Berestein by introducing the quotation with the phrase "According to Berestein."The (10) at the end of the quoted passage indicates the page number from which the quote was taken in the Berestein book. A reference list at the end of your paper would list the complete citation for the Berestein book.

Is this QUOTE that follows plagiarism?

The Middle Eastern water pipe known as the hookah has recently "been resurrected in youth-oriented coffeehouses, restaurants and bars, supplanting the cigar as the tobacco fad of the moment" (Berestein 10).

No, this is not plagiarism.
In this example, the writer cites the source using the Modern Language Associaton (MLA) style, with the author's name and page number cited at the end of the quote.

Is this QUOTE that follows plagiarism?

The Middle Eastern water pipe known as the hookah recently "has been resurrected in youth-oriented coffeehouses, restaurants and bars, supplanting the cigar as the tobacco fad of the moment."¹

No, this is not plagiarism.
Here, the writer uses Turabian style to reference the author, by marking the cited source with a footnote/endnote number. A footnote or endnote will appear later in the paper (either at the bottom of the page or the end of the paper) containing the complete citation for the author, including the page number.

Notice that in each of these examples, the writer quotes Berestein's words exactly as it was given within the sentence. Whenever you quote someone else's words, you have to write them exactly as they originally appear.

Creative Commons License

This guide is adapted from the Plagiarism Tutorial created by the University of Southern Mississippi. This work licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) 4.0 International License.