Poetry

It's easy to understand most types of cheating because we learned about them as children. It's harder to understand plagiarism though.

Take a look at McLennan Community College's Academic Integrity policy to learn how the college defines cheating and plagiarism and discover the penalties for each.

Afterward, visit Purdue OWL's Quoting, Paraphrasing, and Summarizing or its Best Practices to Avoid Plagiarism to make sure you know how to avoid accidental plagiarism. (Yes, you can accidentally commit plagiarism!)

The video below also offers some useful information on plagiarism and tips for avoiding it.

To use information ethically, you must cite, or give credit to, your sources. Even if you put the information into your own words, the evidence to support your statements came from someone who deserves credit.

So, how do you use another author's ideas or words ethically? The three ways are quoting, paraphrasing, and summarizing. Anytime you quote, paraphrase, or summarize, you must include an in-text citation in the body of your paper and provide an entry in your References or Works Cited page.

• Quoting: Quoting is when you a repeat a person's ideas word-for-word. Quotes should not be overused! Only use quotes that are especially powerful.

• Paraphrasing: Paraphrasing is when you take a passage from another work and restate it in your own words. The passage you use is only a part of the larger work.

• Summarizing: Summarizing is like paraphrasing. It is restating someone else's ideas in your own words. However, a summary covers more original material than a paraphrase, and is shorter.

The following videos from Scribbr are helpful for understanding plagiarism, quoting, and paraphrasing.

What is Plagiarism?

How to Avoid Plagiarism with 3 Tricks

How to Paraphrase in 5 Easy Steps

How to Quote in Under 5 Minutes