Plagiarism
What is Plagiarism?

 

 
"Plagiarism has been defined as “the false assumption of authorship: the wrongful act of taking the product of another person’s mind, and presenting it as one’s own” (Alexander Lindey, Plagiarism and Originality [New York: Harper, 1952] 2). Plagiarism involves two kinds of wrongs.

1. Using another person’s ideas, information, or expressions without acknowledging that person’s work constitutes intellectual theft. 
 
2. Passing off another person’s ideas, information, or expressions as your own to get a better grade or gain some other advantage constitutes fraud.

Plagiarism is sometimes a moral and ethical offense rather than a legal one since some instances of plagiarism fall outside the scope of copyright infringement, a legal offense.


" - MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, Sixth Edition, 2003


You Have Plagiarized If

- while browsing the Web, you copied text and pasted it into your paper without quotation marks or without citing the source.

- you presented facts without saying where you found them.

- you repeated or paraphrased someone’s wording without acknowledgement.

- you took someone’s unique or particularly apt phrase without acknowledgement.

- you paraphrased someone’s argument or presented someone’s line of thought without acknowledgement.

- you bought or otherwise acquired a research paper and handed in part or all of it as your own.

- MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, Sixth Edition, 2003


Click on the link below to quiz yourself and learn more about it: