Resources on Avoiding Plagiarism
Department of Political Science
Concordia University


III. How Not to Plagiarize
B. Types and Examples of Plagiarism

Type 4: Pattern, Organization, or Structure of Arguments and Ideas If you adopt the structure or organization of an author's argument while expressing it in your own words, you must cite the author, or else you are plagiarizing.

Example

Original Source
I have found many reasons for believing that with more nuclear states the world will have a more promising future. I have reached this unusual conclusion for three main reasons. First, international politics is a self-help system, and in such systems the principal parties determine their own fate, the fate of the other parties, and the fate of the system...Second, nuclear weaponry makes miscalculations difficult because it is hard not to be aware of how much damage a small number of nuclear warheads can do...Third, new nuclear states will feel the constraints that present nuclear states have experienced.

[From: Kenneth N. Waltz, "More May Be Better," in Scott D. Sagan and Kenneth N. Waltz, The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: A Debate Renewed (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2003), 44.]

Plagiarism
Reasons that nuclear weapons may increase stability include the self-help nature of international relations, the reduced danger of miscalculation due nuclear weapons' greater destructiveness, and the fact that as more countries become nuclear powers, they will be deterred from using their weapons just as existing nuclear powers have been.

Proper Acknowledgement
According to Kenneth Waltz, nuclear proliferation increases stability due to the self-help nature of international relations, the reduced danger of miscalculation due nuclear weapons' greater destructiveness, and the fact that as more countries become nuclear powers, they will be deterred from using their weapons just as existing nuclear powers have been.1

1Kenneth N. Waltz, "More May Be Better," in Scott D. Sagan and Kenneth N. Waltz, The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: A Debate Renewed (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2003), 44.


 

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