What is Plagiarism
Plagiarism is copying someone else's idea and calling it your own idea. Whether you quote something directly or "paraphrase it" (which involves taking an idea from a book and adapting it to your own words), you must give credit to the author by mentioning his name, the title of the book or article, and the page number where the idea appeared. If you quote something directly, you must put quotation marks around it and quote it with 100% accuracy.
The only thing you need not credit is "common knowledge". Common knowledge include:
- information that everyone knows
- common proverbs and expressions
- information that is given in every source on the subject
- general conclusions that anyone could reach. For example, you need not cite a source for the facts that Columbus discovered America, that "A penny saved is a penny earned', that John Diefenbaker died in 1979, or that watching television is a popular Canadian pastime" (Millward and Flick, Handbook for Writers 399). It may also happen that you have read a book in the past from which you later repeat an idea without realizing that you have used that book as a source; this too is acceptable since the idea has, in fact, become part of your own intellectual experience. In the end, plagiarism is a matter of honesty but, if you have any doubts on the subject, see your instructor because if you hand in a paper which contains plagiarism your teacher may fail the essay and may even give you an "F" for the whole course.
