What is Plagiarism?

Below is information about Plagiarism, Citing Sources, and Evaluating Sources. This is extremely important information to think about when using any type of information!!!

What is Plagiarism? Plagiarism is when you take someone else's thoughts, ideas, words, etc. and treat them as your own without giving proper credit. Here are some things that could be seen as plagiarism (taken from http://www.plagiarism.org/plagiarism-101/what-is-plagiarism):


  • turning in someone else's work as your own
  • copying words or ideas from someone else without giving credit
  • failing to put a quotation in quotation marks
  • giving incorrect information about the source of a quotation
  • changing words but copying the sentence structure of a source without giving credit
  • copying so many words or ideas from a source that it makes up the majority of your work, whether you give credit or not


How to Prevent Plagiarism? In order to prevent plagiarism, it is important to cite information in your paper when using a direct quote, reference, etc. and to provide a Works Cited/Reference Page.

Paraphrase or Quote- Here is some information on what each of these terms mean:

Paraphrase-"To paraphrase is to include the ideas or information from an original source in your paper by rephrasing those ideas or information in your own words. The key to successful paraphrasing is to use as few words as possible from the original text--be mindful not to change the meaning that you are trying to convey as you rephrase--and to cite your paraphrase. Without proper citation, your paraphrase could be construed as plagiarism"(http://www.plagiarism.org/citing-sources/how-to-paraphrase/).

Quote-"To quote is to include the identical wording from the original source in your paper. Quoted material in your paper is distinguished from your own words by the use of " " or by indenting the quoted text (if quoting a longer passage). In addition to quotation marks or indenting, all quoted material should also be cited, using either footnotes, endnotes, or in-text citation" (http://www.plagiarism.org/citing-sources/how-to-paraphrase/).

Quoting Material-Please go to the following website for more information on Quoting Material- http://www.plagiarism.org/citing-sources/quoting-material/. This website contains information about how/when to quote and provides specific details about quoting information in a paper.

Creating a Works Cited/Reference Page: Here are some references to help create a Works Cited Page:

  1. EasyBib- http://www.easybib.com/
  2. Purdue Owl Online Writing Lab- https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/05/
  3. Citation Machine- http://www.citationmachine.net/

When Don't I Need to Cite Information? You don’t need to cite sources or information if it is "common knowledge" or information that you were previously aware of. Here is some information from Purdue Owl about Common Knowledge (https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/589/2/):



Here is a fun activity to teach you about Plagiarism: You Code It, You Note It-http://library.acadiau.ca/tutorials/plagiarism/