Plagarism

As I learned over the years, plagiarism is taking credit for any work that is not yours, whether it is text or ideas. If you get information from anywhere without citing your source or giving the original author credit, then you are engaging in plagiarism.

Valdosta State University has put together a very helpful student hand guide on the different types of plagiarism. A few of the most common, according to VSU, are: Copy and paste, word switch, and idea.

Copy and paste- is taking text word for word from a source and not mentioning the author at all. You can do this only if you put the text in quotations and cite where you that information from.

Word Switch- is when you take a sentence from a source and only change around a few words. Even though the text is not verbatim it is still plagiarism. Again, you have to put the text in quotation and cite the source. (Barnbaum)

Idea- is using somebody else's creative ideas as your own. General knowledge which everybody is expected to know does not have to be cited, but when the author expresses new ideas or a solution to a problem  you have to give that person credit. (Barnbaum)



Barnbaum, D. C. (n.d.). Plagiarism a student's guide to recognizing it and avoiding it. Retrieved from http://ww2.valdosta.edu/~cbarnbau/personal/teaching_MISC/plagiarism.htm