What is Plagiarism?
So what exactly constitutes plagiarism? The most basic definition of plagiarism is taking the ideas, words, or works of another person and presenting them as your own, either through copying or improper citation.
In today's academic environment, there are lots of ways to commit plagiarism. You could buy, borrow, or steal a paper; copy large sections of text from a book; or fail to cite your sources.
One very important point about plagiarism is that it's not always a mean, ugly, nasty act youMEANT to do. Sometimes you plagiarize without knowing it!
We can say that plagiarism is either . . .
INTENTIONAL
OR
UNINTENTIONAL
Regardless, you can still get in trouble for plagiarism!
PLAGIARISM IS A BIG DEAL!
In upper school, you can receive failing grades for assignments if you plagiarize. In college, you can be expelled from your school if you plagiarize multiple times.