What is Plagiarism and How to Avoid It

In school, we are continually engaging with other people’s ideas:  we read them in texts, hear them in lecture, discuss them in class, and incorporate them into our own writing.  As a result, it is very important that we give credit where it is due.  Plagiarism is using other’s ideas and words without clearly acknowledging the source of that information.

To avoid plagiarizing, you must give credit whenever you use:

-         another person’s idea, opinion, or theory

-         any facts, statistics, graphs, drawings – any pieces of   
      information-that are not common knowledge

-         quotations of another person’s actual spoken or written words

-         paraphrase of another person’s spoken or written words.

All students are required to follow them.