Students wishing to lessen their work load or finish an assignment more quickly might purchase an essay online, borrow a classmate's paper and change a few words, or copy passages directly from textbooks, websites, or scholarly articles.
Consequences:
Plagiarism can occur accidentally as well, due to being ignorant of proper methods of citation and attribution (giving credit to the individual/entity that created the resource).
Copyright law is the law that protects intellectual property. To plagiarize is to violate the copyright protections placed on a work or idea. For more information about copyright, visit the Copyright Guide:
For the humanities, such as literature and writing courses, MLA citation style is generally preferred.
The Center for Reading and Writing (CRW) is a good place to start for citation resources:
Additional resources for learning how to use the MLA citation style:
The American Psychological Association (APA) citation style is used primarily by the sciences, both social sciences and hard sciences.
The CRW is a good place to start for help with citations.
Additional resources for learning how to use the APA citation style:
If the words, images or ideas are not yours, they're someone else's. Make sure to give credit to your sources. It's the ethical thing to do, and gives respect and honor to previous researchers.
SUNY Adirondack's Student Code of Conduct includes statements about plagiarism. There can be serious repercussions.
Always cite your sources when you...:
From: Yale Poorvu Center for Teaching and Learning. "Warning: When You Must Cite". Poorvu Center, https://poorvucenter.yale.edu/writing/using-sources/understanding-and-avoiding-plagiarism/warning-when-you-must-cite [This citation is in MLA style!]
Z710 .Q37 2011
Located at Library Reference Desk