In most situations, students are responsible for any occurrences of term paper cheating, whether or not they are intentional. Therefore, the student who wishes to avoid inadvertent term paper cheating should learn to recognize it easily. The following principles should help.
First, in the process of writing term papers, cheating occurs when students do not correctly cite their sources. Because term papers usually depend so deeply on an exchange and interaction with research material, using someone else's work without citing it properly does constitute cheating or plagiarism rather than constituting a mere mistake. Students should put quotation marks around any unique words, phrases, or sentences that they gain from other sources. However, students do not usually need to use quotes for the jargon that they absorb from having read many sources; for example, while "synecdoche" is an unusual word, many sources may use it to describe a certain type of literary trope in a given text, and therefore the student does not need to quote it from a particular source. On the other hand, if it is clear that a research source has creatively styled a phrase, the student should put quotation marks around it.
Additionally, in the process of creating term papers, cheating occurs when students do not properly identify the sources of their ideas. Students should cite the sources that provide ideas for the term paper, even if they never directly quote those ideas, and they may place those citations where they introduce the ideas. If the style of the paper allows footnotes, the student may find it helpful to include a footnote that says, "The ideas in this section borrow heavily from [research source citation]."
Finally, term paper cheating sometimes occurs when students deliberately try to hide the fact that they procured academic help. While certain types of assistance may not require a citation, such as proofreading assistance from a writing lab, the student should cite sources that provided direct help in the creation of the term paper, particularly example term papers that offered ideas upon which he or she depended.
