Defining Plagiarism: Researching; evaluating and using sources responsibly. Class Post (H)- 3/31/2010

When writing a paper, most people tend to take information from either websites, journals, or books. In order to take information from these sources, a person must cite the sources either throughout their paper or at the end in a bibliography. No body knows everything about their topic that they are writing about. So, in order to prove their point or to show the different debates about a certain topic, the writer must show the sources they have used so that the reader can physically see that the writer has found other people who back up their thoughts and ideas and have tried to improve their paper by using a scholarly source. If a person does not cite certain ideas in their paper, the reader could automatically think that the writer made up the information on their own, or that it is known information but some of it could be biased instead of true facts.

However, there are certain sources that don't necessarily need to be cited. Common knowledge and known facts by everyone doesn't need to be cited in a person's paper. For example, everyone knows that President Barack Obama was elected in January of 2009. Also, a person does not need to cite a source if the facts are available in many other sources as well. For example, any information from encyclopedias, almanacs, or textbooks do not necessarily need to be cited in a person's paper.

Besides these certain exceptions, any information that is not the writer's must be cited in the paper and must have given full credit to the author. Any quotations, paraphrases, or even summaries must be fully cited. Even though when a writer paraphrases and summarizes information they are putting it into their own words, they must still cite where they got the original information from. Also, unlike familiar sources, information that is taken from sources that aren't very known must also be cited. Any debates or opinions from other authors must also be given credit to throughout the paper. If any of those sources are not cited properly or not cited at all, that would result in the writer's full research to be destroyed and that is know as plagiarism.

Plagiarism is the unauthorized use or close imitation of the language and thoughts of another author and the representation of them as one's own original work (Webster Dictionary). Either deliberately or unintentional, plagiarism is a very serious offense which is not tolerated anywhere. In many schools and colleges especially, any acts of plagiarism can result in very serious consequences. Some professors automatically fail the student who plagiarizes or that student might even be expelled from the school. It's not only students who get penalized though. Many adults seeking their masters or PhD can also be caught of plagiarism and have their degrees taken back. Plagiarism can be identified by inaccurately citing a source or deliberately plagiarizing a source (St. Martin's Handbook pg. 284-285). Inaccurately citing a source can result from a write paraphrasing certain information that is actually very close to the original author's writing of that information. Also, not including quotation marks around a quote taken from a source is also considered to be plagiarism (pg. 284). Deliberately plagiarizing a source is basically when a writer completely fails to acknowledge the original author's work. There are plenty of websites on the internet that allow a person to buy essays off the internet and use that in their classes. This is definitely considered to be plagiarism and a very serious case of it.

Citing sources properly is a very important part of writing a paper. Inaccurately citing a source causes the paper to be weak and doesn't allow the reader to get the full effect that the paper is trying to achieve.