Citation or plagiarism? Where the line runs

Plagiarism is presenting someone else's words or ideas as your own. Most cases are not deliberate theft but small slips: a forgotten citation, a paraphrase that stays too close to the original. Here are the common situations and how to handle each.

Quoting

Copying words exactly is fine when they are in quotation marks and cited. Quote when the wording itself matters: a definition, a legal text, a striking phrase. Long quotations that make your argument for you weaken a paper, even when they are cited.

Paraphrasing

Putting an idea in your own words still needs a citation, because the idea is not yours, only the wording. A real paraphrase changes the structure, not just the words. If you keep the original's sentence order and swap in synonyms, it is still too close.

Patchwriting

Stitching together sentences from several sources with small changes is the most common problem in student papers. Each piece may even be cited, but the text is not really yours. In an OpenPlag report it shows up as many short passages With changes, from several sources.

Self-plagiarism

Reusing your own published text without saying so is also a problem, especially when the same results are submitted twice. Reusing your own wording with a citation to the earlier paper is usually acceptable, within the journal's rules. OpenPlag marks a source that looks like your own earlier publication, so you can tell it apart from someone else's text.

Translation

Translating a passage from another language and presenting it without a citation is plagiarism, even though not a single word matches. OpenPlag flags such passages as Paraphrase / translation candidates for a person to check.

Common knowledge

Facts that any reader in the field knows, such as the dates of well-known events or basic definitions, need no citation. When in doubt, cite.

Simple rules

• Someone's exact words: quotation marks and a citation.
• Someone's idea in your words: a citation.
• Your own earlier text: a citation to yourself.
• A passage you translated: a citation, and a note that the translation is yours.