plagiarism - from Latin plagiarus (kidnapper); taking else's info and presenting it as one's own
- type of intellectual theft because it's taking someone else's ideas without their permission
- type of fraud because it's also passing off someone else's ideas as your own
unintentional plagiarism
- using author's exact wording without crediting them
- forgetting to credit authors
- copying the syntax (sentence structure) of another author
forms of plagiarizing - the following would be okay if you gave credit to the original author
- copying and pasting from the internet
- using specific facts and statistics
- repeating someone else's choice of wording
- using someone else's sentence structure
- replacing certain words in a sentence with synonyms and then calling it your own
- using four or more words from the original source
- using a term invented by another author
- using someone else's opinions and way of thinking on a certain topic
Occasions when documentation of sources is not needed
- using a well-known quote
- using a well-known proverb
- using a well-known fact
- using information available in a lot of sources
- information that you already know