Plagiarism is presenting the words or ideas of someone else as your own without proper acknowledgment of the source. If you don't credit the author, you are committing a type of theft called plagiarism. In fact the word plagiarism comes from the Latin term for kidnapping.

When you work on a research paper you will probably find supporting material for your paper from works by others. It's okay 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 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;

Tips for Avoiding Plagiarism:

1. First, use your own ideas - it should be your paper and your ideas that are be the focus
2. Use the ideas of others sparingly - only to support or reinforce your own argument
3. When taking notes, include complete citation information for each item you use
4. Use quotation marks when directly stating another person's words