Citation Guide: Plagiarism

Plagiarism can happen deliberately or unintentially and should not be taken lightly. Plagiarism is like stealing and diminishes the academic value of your research and threatens academic integrity and the pursuit of information and knowledge. Take the time to understand plagiarism!

RELATED: Academic Integrity

The International Center for Academic Integrity defines academic integrity as having six components:

1. Honesty -Turn in your own work, based on your own intellectual quest.
2. Trust - Scholars and academic institutions should mutually support academic freedoms and foster trust in the pursuit and exchange of knowledge.
3. Fairness - Learning experiences and interactions need to be carried out fairly and consistently according to institution policies.
4. Respect - All opinions and exchanges must be shared with a respect of intellectual freedom and the process of learning. 
5. Responsibility - Be accountable for the work you turn in and accept responsibility for the pursuit of your own education.
6. Courage - Stand up for values even under pressure and adversity. 

As a student, you need to be familiar with Fair Use, defined in Section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law (Title 17, U.S. Code). According to the law, fair use is determined by four factors:

1. The purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes
2. The nature of the copyrighted work
3. The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole
4. The effect of the use upon the potential market for, or value of, the copyrighted work

Giving credit and providing proper citation allows students to use sources for academic use without obtaining permission from the authors or creators of works used in research.

Plagiarism can be DELIBERATE or UNINTENTIONAL. Whenever you borrow words or ideas, you MUST acknowledge their source to give the author/creator credit and to respect their intellectual property!

The following situations almost always require citation:

• turning in someone else's work as your own
• failing to put a quotation in quotation marks
• giving incorrect information about the source of a quotation
• changing words but copying the sentence structure of a source without giving credit
• copying so many words or ideas from a source that it makes up the majority of your work [also called "fair use" in copyright law], whether you give credit or not 

--excerpt from Plagiarism.org

For more help understanding plagiarism and citation for research papers, consult the library's Citation Guide.

Use the links below to check work for plagiarism. Remember, these tools are available on the Internet for anyone, including professors, to use!

Use the links below to check work for plagiarism. Remember, these tools are available on the Internet for anyone, including professors, to use!