What is Plagiarism?Plagiarism is taking a piece of work that has been copied from someone else and is presenting it as your own work. Plagiarism is not only lazy, but also dishonest, and you can get in real trouble for doing it. In fact, it is actually illegal! You probably won’t be prosecuted for plagiarizing on a paper for school, but educators do take it very seriously. There are many tools available to help teachers determine whether or not work is copied from the internet or from another student. Rules are different from school to school, but if you plagiarize a paper and get caught (which you will), there will definitely be consequences. It is definitely better to actually do the work yourself than get caught plagiarizing and ending up in serious trouble.
Be careful…
Sometimes, people may plagiarize without meaning to or even realizing that they are doing it. Even if you plagiarize unintentionally, you could still get in trouble. This is why it is very important to give credit to the people who create the ideas that you are writing about. How does someone accidentally plagiarize? There are several ways, but here are some of the most common: • Copying and pasting web site content without giving credit to the author • Not using quotation marks to indicate that you are quoting from another source • Using words from a source with citing the incorrect source or citation In order to make sure you are presenting your own work and are not plagiarizing, you need to be extra careful to make sure you don’t take credit for something that isn’t yours. Here are some helpful sites that provide more information about plagiarizing and how to avoid it: http://www.plagiarism.org/plagiarism-101/what-is-plagiarism/ http://kidshealth.org/kid/feeling/school/plagiarism.html# http://en.writecheck.com/ways-to-avoid-plagiarism/ http://edtech2.boisestate.edu/patriciasmeyers/502/scavenger.html Need help with citations? Check here for help: https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/677/01/ |
Fair UseFair Use
Fair use is the conditions under which you can use someone else’s copyrighted material without paying for it. The United States Copyright Act recognizes that fair use of a copyrighted work may be used "for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, or research." |
CopyRightsHow can someone protect their work?
A copyright gives the creator of an original work a group of rights that allows the creator of the work to have control over what can be done with his or her work. In order to gain a copyright, the work must be ”an original work of authorship fixed in a tangible medium of expression." This means that in order to be entitled to copyright protection, the work has to be something you created and has to be in some physical form, such as a recording, a piece of writing, a video recording, or another type of physical production. What rights are included in a copyright? (1) The right to distribute and sell your work (2) The right to make copies of your work (3) The right to display your work (4) The right to perform your work (5) create other pieces based on the ideas in your original work |
Resources
Copyright and Fair Use in the UMUC Online or Face-to-Face Classroom. (n.d.). Retrieved October 31, 2015, from https://www.umuc.edu/library/libhow/copyright.cfm
Copyright Society of the U.S.A. Retrieved from http://www.copyrightkids.org/defframes.htm.
What is Plagiarism? Plagiarism. org. Retrieved from http://www.plagiarism.org/plagiarism-101/what-is-plagiarism/.
Copyright and Fair Use in the UMUC Online or Face-to-Face Classroom. (n.d.). Retrieved October 31, 2015, from https://www.umuc.edu/library/libhow/copyright.cfm
Copyright Society of the U.S.A. Retrieved from http://www.copyrightkids.org/defframes.htm.
What is Plagiarism? Plagiarism. org. Retrieved from http://www.plagiarism.org/plagiarism-101/what-is-plagiarism/.