Plagiarism and copying mean different things in different countries and education systems. What may be an entirely respectable way to draw from outside sources in your native culture may be considered immoral in the USA, or vice versa. Since US universities tend to have very strict policies about copying (most universities will at least fail an assignment that has plagiarized material;\u00a0 the most extreme universities will expel students if they plagiarize even once), it\u2019s important to get used to the American perspective on this issue before you start doing coursework.<\/p>\n
On the TOEFL, fortunately, the matter is a little bit simpler, because you don\u2019t need to incorporate outside sources into your essays, and you don\u2019t need to use in-text citations beyond making it clear which information came from the lecture, and which information came from the reading sample on integrated tasks. But you will have a text, and it may be tempting to\u00a0copy directly from that text. But that is a bad idea.\u00a0<\/strong>You do not need to\u00a0copy the exact words of anything<\/strong> on the TOEFL.\u00a0Instead,\u00a0you\u2019ll want to learn how to paraphrase. Here are some tips to help you stay on the right side of the border between using sources appropriately and copying them.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I\u2019ve written over and over again about how important it is to take notes. As you do this, though, try to avoid writing exactly what was said. Use shorthand and your own words for the thoughts in the lecture or text. If you don\u2019t copy the materials word-for-word into your notes, it\u2019s very unlikely that you\u2019ll accidentally copy something inappropriately.<\/p>\n If you do put a direct quote into your notes or response, put quotation marks around it so that it\u2019s clear to you and to the graders that you did not come up with that phrase yourself. \u00a0Do not do this with long sentences, though\u2014quotes should be just a couple of words, maximum, and only in special situations. If you’re not sure about including a quote, then don’t.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n By turning direct speech into indirect speech, you dramatically improve your ability to paraphrase the content of conversations. In case you have no idea what I\u2019m talking about, here\u2019s an example:<\/p>\n John said, \u201cI think the university\u2019s new policy is a bad idea.” = Direct speech<\/em><\/p>\n John said that the university\u2019s new policy was\u00a0a bad idea. = Indirect speech<\/em><\/p>\n But go one step further: change some of the wording, too!<\/p>\n John said that the changes\u00a0the university\u00a0made to their policy seemed like a mistake. = Paraphrasing<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Plagiarism and copying mean different things in different countries and education systems. What may be an entirely respectable way to draw from outside sources in your native culture may be considered immoral in the USA, or vice versa. Since US universities tend to have very strict policies about copying (most universities will at least fail […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":47,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13602],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[13632],"class_list":["post-495","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prep"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nWork from your notes<\/h2>\n
Change direct quotes to indirect quotes<\/h2>\n
<\/h2>\n