One problem students have with plagiarism occurs because they are having trouble understanding what they are reading. Often students can identify what is significant, important, relevant, or valuable in a source but, because of a lack of background, have trouble translating what they are reading into their own words. So instead of doing that, students copy the original into their own paper with very little change. Unfortunately, this is plagiarism.

Ultimately, students have to gain a basic understanding of what they are reading. This can only be done through more research. When students find something they do not understand, this should generate a question for further research. For instance, a student writing a process paper on how a telephone works was having trouble figuring out the role of the electromagnet in the process. The reason for the student's difficulty was that he didn't know what an electromagnet was. Researching the question, "What is an electromagnet?" provided him with the necessary understanding to write his process paper on how a telephone works.

Another tool that students should use is analogy. An analogy is a comparison between two things where the writer is seeking to explain one thing by indicating its resemblance to something more readily understood. Scientists often use analogy to help them explain or describe things that are very technical. So, early scientists describing the structure of the atom compared it to a minature solar system or to a raisin pudding. A student explaining the DNA molecule might liken it to a spiral staircase where each step is made up of four colored tiles. While these aren't perfect models, they get across a central idea and point of resemblance that can help the reader understand.

In addition to using analogies to explain a complex topic, a student can also incorporate bits of quotation from the original source to round out his or her explanation. In other words, instead of just copying the information with little or no change, the student can paraphrase the facts and translate the key idea, supporting the translation with quotations from the original source.

Students sometimes find it difficult when taking notes on basic facts thinking of a way of writing down the facts that is distinctive from the original material.

The following, which is taken word-for-word from the first two paragraphs of "John Fitzgerald Kennedy," Contemporary Heroes and Heroines, Book I, gives some basic facts about JFK:

Born May 29, 1917, in Brookline, Massachusetts, John Fitzgerald Kennedy was the thirty-fifth president of the United States, and was assassinated November 22, 1963, in Dallas, Texas.

Kennedy was one of nine children born to mega-millionaire Joseph P. Kennedy and his wife, Rose. He was raised at the family's Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, compound on Cape Cod, where he was encouraged to develop a directness of manner and keen sense of competition. . . .

The key to taking notes on information is to restrict notes, as much as possible, to nouns. Following is a notecard that includes some basic facts taken from this source:

Notice that most of the words on the notecard are nouns. The verb born is given in abbreviated form. Verbs like born, died, married, divorced, father, mother, and so on are safe to use in notes since any substitute would be awkard. Notice, too, that the two phrases about Kennedy's early character have been quoted. Also, the paragraph numbers from the source have been identified for inclusion in the internal citations or tags for this information.

These notes transformed into sentences in a writer's paper might read

John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the son of Joseph P. and Rose Kennedy was born in Brookline, Massachussetts, on May 29, 1917. Growing up in Hyannis Port, MA, Cape Cod, with his nine brothers and sisters, Kennedy learned a "directness of manner" and developed a "keen sense of competition" ("John Fitzgerald Kennedy").

While the writer's paragraph contains the same ideas as the original, the wording is different, and the pertinent facts have been properly identified by source in the internal citations (tags). The works cited entry for this source can be found below. Also, in all probability, the writer would also be combining with these notes notes from other sources.