Citing+Sources+and+Avoiding+Plagiarism

=What is Plagiarism?= It can be as simple and easy to detect as copying directly from another student or quoting without giving credit to your sources. It can also be much less obvious and take the form of paraphrasing while failing to site the source or changing only a few words of someone else's work when explaining an idea. According to dictionary.com, 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." (//[]//)//

=What's Wrong with Plagiarism?= Plagiarism is serious stuff, that results in serious consequences. Our own school handbook states: "//Students are expected to do their own schoolwork. Cheating by looking at another student's schoolwork, copying others' work, copying from other sources, plagiarism or similar __cheating is not tolerated__. In addition to the discipline outlined in this handbook, discipline for repeated offenses may include the loss of class credit and use of other media center or computer labs. Whenever a student is involved in, or guilty of cheating, the teacher shall collect the student's paper, mark a "0" for the assignment, __and__ notify the parents of the students involved. This procedure will be followed not only for the student receiving the answers, but also for students who are knowingly and willingly giving answers to another student.//"

There is no integrity in plagiarism. In essence, cheating is stealing, not borrowing and the consequences only become more serious as you continue into higher education.

When you represent someone else's work as your own, you're also denying yourself the opportunity to learn deeply and to communicate what you have learned. If your work is not authentically your own, your teacher has no way of knowing how well you understand the information and is then unable to help you gain a clearer understanding.

It is important that you begin, now, to develop the good habits of properly crediting your sources and incorporating or summarizing the work of others, rather than claiming their work as your own.

=Avoiding Plagiarism=
 * Get organized and avoid procrastinating. Most plagiarism occurs when students are in a time crunch or are lazy.
 * Make sure you understand what you are reading. If the information doesn't make sense to you, you won't be able to explain it with out plagiarizing.
 * If more than three or so words in a row come directly from your source, they had better be in quotations.
 * Paraphrasing and summarizing do not excuse you from citing your sources. If the knowledge and ideas are not your own...credit those who made them available to you.
 * __Always__ reference your sources. Check with your teachers to learn the formats they prefer, but __always__ refer to your sources, even if your teacher does not have you use a formal citation.
 * Take charge of your own understanding of plagiarism. Read up on the subject and learn to use one citation format well. You may be asked to use others, but familiarity with one makes learning others so much easier.

=In this Classroom= In this classroom, I expect that if you use any outside source (including classmates) you credit all sources you use, whether it is for a formal paper or a quick question. Most of these references can be made informally, but all formal references should be made using MLA format.

If you are giving or receiving help or working together on an assignment, you should indicate with whom you worked and how information was shared. For example: "I helped Diana on this assingment" or "Dell helped me with some of this assignment".

=Resources= [|http://www.plagiarism.org] In their own words: "Our Mission - Our mission is to help people all over the world prevent plagiarism and restore integrity to written work."

[] In their own words: "**BibMe** is a free automatic bibliography generator that supports MLA, APA, Chicago, and Turabian formatting."