Plagiarism means using someone else’s work without giving due credit.
It is intellectual theft and presenting work or concepts as your own that you did not author is fraud.
When a passage does not sound like the rest of a body of writing, instructors and publishers become suspicious.
Keep in mind that thanks to Google and plagiarism check websites, the original source of a short phrase or even a whole block of text can be instantly discovered.
Permission is needed to use images or artwork. The Google image search allows a viewer to search on license types. Be sure to follow Creative Commons licensing guidelines and always credit the source regardless of copyright or licensing grants.
If English is a second language or post-secondary education occurred outside of the United States, the iSchool and UIUC maintain different expectations regarding assigning credit in academic writing. Please pay attention to those standards and guidelines and assign credit to any of the following when writing:
- Ideas and concepts
- Phrase
- Sentence
- Passage
- Tables and Diagrams
- Data, Statistics, Datasets
- Media-based resources such as videos or blog posts
Be sure to understand the implications of committing plagiarism; ignorance of methods and standards regarding citation does not prevent potential disciplinary actions. When in doubt seek out assistance from the writing coaches or a reference librarian at any one of the many campus libraries. Any publications submitted for publication must not contain any plagiarized content, one’s academic reputation depends on accurate citations and scholarly consideration for other’s work.
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