You do not need to cite a source for material considered common knowledge: If a source provided any of these, you need to acknowledge the source. Ideas: An author’s ideas may include not only points made and conclusions drawn, but, for instance, a specific method or theory, the arrangement of material, or a list of steps in a process or characteristics of a medical condition.

Information: If a piece of information isn’t common knowledge (see below), you need to provide a source. Information and IdeasĮven if you use your own words, if you obtained the information or ideas you are presenting from a source, you must document the source. If you use an author’s specific word or words, you must place those words within quotation marks and you must credit the source. When using sources in your papers, you can avoid plagiarism by knowing what must be documented.

Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, 10th ed. These materials will help you avoid plagiarism by teaching you how to properly integrate information from published sources into your own writing.ġ. However, when building on the work of others, you need to be careful not to plagiarize: “to steal and pass off (the ideas and words of another) as one’s own” or to “present as new and original an idea or product derived from an existing source.”1 The University of Wisconsin–Madison takes this act of “intellectual burglary” very seriously and considers it to be a breach of academic integrity. College writing often involves integrating information from published sources into your own writing in order to add credibility and authority–this process is essential to research and the production of new knowledge.

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