Avoiding Plagiarism

Most students know that plagiarism is bad, and that it's a punishable offense, but many don't know quite what it is or how to avoid it. In short, plagiarism is taking credit for someone else's words or ideas - either intentionally or not. Examples might be taking an idea from an article and putting it in a research paper or presentation without crediting the original source, using someone's exact words without citing them, or even going so far as to buy a paper off the Internet and turning it in as your own work.

Here are some resources to help you learn more about what it is, and how NOT to do it.

• HCC's policy regarding Scholastic Dishonesty (scroll down a bit to see it)
• A great explanation of plagiarism from the Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL)
• You Quote It, You Note It, an interactive tutorial from Acadia University (requires the free Flash Player plugin)
• MLA and APA style guides - knowing how to cite your sources is helpful in avoiding plagiarism
• Sample papers using the MLA and APA citation styles
• Capital Community College's Statement on Plagiarism
• Citation Machine - Please note that this is only a tool to assist in writing citations.  Citations still need to be proofread using the guidelines of the course instructor and/or a style manual such as APA, MLA, or Turabian.