Plagiarism and Copyrights

To better understand plagiarism I am going to start with its definition. Plagiarism is the representation of another person’s words, ideas, or information as if they were one’s own. The first website I visited was owl.english.purdue.edu. There are actions that can easily be labeled as plagiarism that include buying, stealing, or borrowing a paper, hiring someone to write your paper for you, copying large sections of text, and copying an entire paper or article from the web without proper citation. However, there are also actions that may be harder to label such as using words of a source too closely when paraphrasing or building on someone else’s ideas without proper citation. Some teachers will try to examine if it is plagiarism or if it is accidental. There are other teachers, however, that will not try to distinguish a difference and charge someone with plagiarism. The best way to avoid plagiarism is to always, always, always cite your sources. Most students truly do not intend to plagiarize, it just happens. Mistakes in citation and crediting can draw attention to the information used. This website gives examples of how to check your self while taking notes and reading. It also gives tips on interviewing, writing paraphrases, direct quotations, using another’s ideas, and revising, proofreading, and finalizing your paper.

The next website is http://www.indiana.edu/~wts/pamphlets/plagiarism.shtml. This website provides links to certain types of plagiarism. The goal of these links is to show you what plagiarism looks like in certain situations and what kind of strategies you can use to avoid it. One example of a link is how to recognize acceptable and unacceptable paraphrases. The next site is abacus.bates.edu. This site goes over the definition of plagiarism, the reasons for citing sources, and what to cite. It goes over proper citations, style guides, two common methods of citation, and judicial procedures. The last site is www.copyright.gov. This site goes over how to register a work for a copyright. It has many different links to explore and learn about copyrights. Some of these links include copyright basics, fees, registrations and documents, publications, licensing, pre-registration, copyright records, how to record a document, and copyright law and policy.

Remember to always give credit where credit is due!