Plagiarism is using another person's ideas or expressions without acknowledging the source. Plagiarism is usually considered a moral or ethical offense rather than a legal one. Some examples of plagiarism are submitting someone's paper as your own, buying a paper from a "term-paper mill" and submitting it as your own, not using quotation marks when you directly quote a source, or failing to cite a source.
The King College Honor Code:
On my Honor, I pledge not to lie, cheat, steal, or fail to address any violation of this Code. I understand that a violation of this Code will result in a trial before the Honor Council.
Plagiarism is a violation of the King College honor code. Penalties range from failure of the assignment, test, or course to suspension and expulsion..
True, sometimes plagiarism can be unintentional. This can occur when you do not keep careful notes from sources you have read. It can also occur if you fail to cite a source or to use quotations. However, whether intentional or unintentional, it's still considered plagiarism.
Not necessarily. In order to support your argument, you will need to use the written work of other people on the subject you are studying. It's a common practice in academic research to use other people's ideas to support your claims. But your paper will also contain your own thoughts and experiences with the subject as well as common knowledge.
Common knowledge is a fact that everyone knows and can be found in several places. For example, George Washington was the first president of the United States.
Sometimes when you are writing, whether intentionally or unintentionally, you may begin to use the language of your sources to express your ideas. Maybe the original source expresses an idea better then you think you could. If you fail to acknowledge the source of borrowed phrases and expressions, then there is a problem because the words you use in your paper are no longer your words but the words of your source.
Here's a paragraph from a book by J.J. Tobias called Urban Crime in Victorian England (New York, Schocken Books, 1972):
From about the middle of the nineteenth century the great secular boom which lasted until the 1870s saw a marked rise in employment opportunities and far more general rise in real incomes than had hitherto occurred. Of course, we must not go too far. Charles Booth's survey of the London of the 1890s is there to remind us of the appalling poverty which existed at the end of the century.
There are several "apt phrases" which you could use in your writing that would be considered plagiarism if you do not quote and cite the source. For example, "great secular boom" and "appalling poverty" are two such phrases. If you used these in your paper without quoting and acknowledging Tobias as the source, you have committed plagiarism.
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