Plagiarism and Academic Integrity

A direct quotation is anything taken directly from a text without any changes. To avoid plagiarism direct quotations must be placed within quotation marks (" ") and properly cited according to the format assigned by your professor.  

Example: “The contrast between Mahler’s conception, based overridingly on expressiveness, and that of other conductor-directors became increasingly evident after his departure from Vienna” (La Grange 2).

Writing a summary involves putting the main ideas of a book, chapter, or passage into your own words, including only the main points. Summaries are often significantly shorter than the original and take a broad overview of the source material. 

Here again is the direct quote that was covered in the first example: “The contrast between Mahler’s conception, based overridingly on expressiveness, and that of other conductor-directors became increasingly evident after his departure from Vienna” (La Grange 2).

An example of a summary for this quote would look like this: La Grange notes that Mahler’s expressive style would become more obvious after he left Vienna (La Grange 2).

Notice that no quotation marks are included in the summary, but a formal MLA citation is still included at the end. 

Paraphrasing is when you put a passage from source material into your own words. When paraphrasing from original source material you will typically condense what has been written. 

Once more, here is the direct quote that was covered in the first example: “The contrast between Mahler’s conception, based overridingly on expressiveness, and that of other conductor-directors became increasingly evident after his departure from Vienna” (La Grange 2).

To paraphrase this example: La Grange states that Mahler’s expressive style became “increasingly evident after his departure from Vienna” (La Grange 2).