Introduction

Background on the Course

Classroom materials

Writing assignment sheets

Workshopping and workshop sheets

Sample materials grouped by instructor


Print-Friendly Page Print Page
Authors & Contributors

What is plagiarism?

Back Back to About Plagiarism

Simply stated, plagiarism is the dishonest use of someone else's thoughts or words. It's cheating. Plagiarism can vary from submitting someone else's paper as your own, to "borrowing" a nice sounding phrase, to using a source without citing it correctly, to "padding" a bibliography by making up sources or including sources you didn't use in your research. Whenever you use a general concept or idea, quotation, statistic, fact, illustration, or phrase that is not your own without giving proper credit to the author, you are guilty of plagiarism.