Plagiarism, Copyright and Citation: Using Resources Responsibly and Ethically
Plagiarism is copying someone else’s work and calling it your own. Plagiarism can be deliberate, as in copying someone else’s homework and handing it in as if you had done it yourself. However, most plagiarism by students is less obvious. When students write a report or compose any research data and don’t list the resources, books and web-sites, from which they got the ideas...that is plagiarism. If students use any ideas or writing from another place they must give credit to the source or person who thought of it, or wrote it, first (this is called citation). To understand more on this topic the following web-site gives more insight:
Plagiarism.org: http://www.plagiarism.org
Copyright is a form of protection given to the authors or creators of original works including literature, drama, music, art and other intellectual works. What that means is that only the author of the work may make and distribute copies of their work, or perform or display it publicly. Using or displaying the work of others is called copyright infringement and can result in a major fine or lawsuit. Read more about copyright at this excellent site:
Copyright Kids: http://www.copyrightkids.org/cbasicsframes.htm
Citation: Whenever a student incorporates an idea, quote, data, image or other content that is not theirs into a paper or project, they must list the source of information in the form of a bibliography. In early grades a very simple citation is sufficient (up to grade 3 - for a book: title and author and year of publication; for a web-site: title, URL and date of access). Intermediate students are encouraged to use standard citation format (MLA). A very handy web-site that will format resources correctly is the following:
BibMe: http://www.bibme.org/