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Citing Information & Avoiding Plagiarism Tutorial
Evaluating Information
Integrating Information from Sources
Citing Information
What is Plagiarism?
Paraphrasing
Direct Quotation
Summarizing
And Then There's Copyright
Copyright Infringement vs. Plagiarism
Glossary of Terms
Properly Using and Citing Information Quiz
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Summarizing

Summarizing is condensing what an author has said into your own words. Your job is to simplify information using fewer details. As a result, the reader will have an understanding of the overall meaning or point of the work. When summarizing you must still credit the author of the original work.

LET'S PRACTICE

Read the passages below and decide whether Henry's statement is acceptable or if it's plagiarism.

Original Passage
In order to communicate effectively with other people, one must have a reasonably accurate idea of what they do and do not know that is pertinent to the communication. Treating people as though they have knowledge that they do not have can result in miscommunication and perhaps embarrassment. On the other hand, a fundamental rule of conversation, at least according to a Gricean view, is that one generally does not convey to others information that one can assume they already have.

Nickerson, R.S. (1999, November). How we know- and sometimes misjudge-what others know: imputing one's own knowledge to others. Psychological Bulletin, 125 (6), 737-761.

Henry's Version
Nickerson (1999) argues that clear communication hinges upon what an audience does and does not know. It is crucial to assume the audience has neither too much nor too little knowledge of the subject, or the communication may be inhibited by either confusion or offense (p. 737).

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