Q. What is plagiarism?

Plagiarism is presenting the words or ideas of someone else as your own without proper acknowledgment of the source. If you do not credit the author, you are committing a type of theft called plagiarism.

When you work on a research paper you will probably find supporting material for your paper from others' works. It is fine to use the ideas of other people, but you do need to correctly credit them. When you quote people -- or even when you summarize or paraphrase information found in books, articles, or on Web pages -- you must acknowledge the original author.

It IS plagiarism when you...

1. Buy or use a term paper written by someone else.
2. Cut and paste passages from the Web, a book, or an article and insert them into your paper without citing them. Warning! It is now easy to search and find passages that have been copied from the Web.
3. Use the words or ideas of another person without citing them.
4. Paraphrase that person's words without citing them.