How To: Avoid plagiarism in research papers by paraphrasing

One way to avoid plagiarism is to paraphrase. Plagiarism is taking credit for words and ideas that are not your own. Plagiarism can be done intentionally or unintentionally. Paraphrasing is one way to do this, as long as you give credit to the source of the ideas. To paraphrase properly, you will need to be able to isolate the main idea of the source. Identifying the main idea of the passage is important in order to accurately paraphrase an author's ideas. No paper should be made up of more than 1/3 of an author's words. This is usually referred to the 2/3 to 1/3 rule. Paraphrasing is restating words in your own words, while giving credit to the author's ideas.