Plagiarism is taking another person's words or ideas and using them as if they were your own. It can be either deliberate or accidental. Plagiarism is taken very seriously in UK Higher Education. If even a small section of your work is found to have been plagiarized, it is likely that you will be assigned a mark of '0' for that assignment. In more serious cases, it may be necessary for you to repeat the course completely. In some cases, plagiarism may even lead to your being expelled from the university. (http://www.uefap.com/writing/plagiar/plagiar.htm)

Why is it important to write original content?

Shelly Mitchell (2013) says It is important to write in your own words so that you contribute something new to society. If everyone copied someone else’s writing, it would be impossible to advance as a society (we’d still be copying each other’s petroglyphs!), not to mention how boring it would be! When you write in your own words, you say something in a new way—perhaps this new way will help someone else understand a topic they didn’t previously understand. If you explain a topic from a different angle than others do, people who think more along your lines of thinking will be able to grasp the concept better. This happens with teaching all of the time. I have a bachelor’s degree in Biological Science, but I understood biology a Lot better after having students who all learned differently. After explaining biological concepts a hundred different ways (at least!), not only did I understand a concept better, but more students did as well.