How do I know its plagiarism?

Question

Hi. So i started college a week ago and they keep bringing up the consequences of plagiarism.

My first question is:

If i take a sentence from a web site and then say it in my words and do not give credit is that plagiarism? And lets say I do put them in the bibliography, do i have to site it in text also?

In college, is it wrong to have a lot of citations?

Also, If if i know information about something like a ipod and want to go into detail about it, how do i give credit? Because my teacher will say I copied someones info.

Answer 1

"If i take a sentence from a web site and then say it in my words and do not give credit is that plagiarism?"

Yeah. That's still plagiarism if it's so close to the original text.

"And lets say I do put them in the bibliography, do i have to site it in text also?"

No, you don't. But the most popular format nowadays is source after text. It's better if you do put them in the bibliography and after their works.

"in college, is it wrong to have a lot of citations?"

It's not wrong to have many citations. This isn't really important when you do simple homeworks but it's a big deal when you write a book, research or a thesis.

"Also, If if i know information about something like a ipod and want to go into detail about it, how do i give credit? Because my teacher will say I copied someones info."

Now, if you made something up (An original composition) then you don't need to put credit for yourself if you don't want to. This means if you didn't, well, anyone can use this info since no one owns it. maybe you can just put your name somewhere in it.

the most commonly used format is name after title or name after composition.

-tepishane-  (see?)

Answer 2

Plagiarism is super serious in college. Most professors who find out you plagiarized will give you and "FF" in the class, which means you fail it and you cannot re-take it. The best way to avoid plagiarism is to cite every quote or main unique idea you borrow from somewhere else. If it is common knowledge like "Ipods are made by Apple, and usually have 1 to 30 GB of storage" then there is no need to cite it. But if you are like "Ipods are stealing children's souls!" You need to say "According to Joe Schmoe" or something. There is also the option of paraphrasing, which includes you taking several ideas and putting them into your own words, but still giving credit to the author, it just cuts down on the amount of quotes you have.

If you have more questions then just ask your professor, because it's definitely a "better safe than sorry" sort of situation.

Answer 3

Very simply plagiarism is taking credit for someone elses work.

To answer you first question:

If you're just rewording something that was written on a website then yes you need to cite because what you're actually doing is parapharsing what the website said.  So you don't have to put in quotes but you do need to cite it.  Simple rule of thumb I learned when doing papers in college was when in doubt cite your work.

As far as having to many citations, a lot of the that depends on the professor but in my experience they would rather cite your work than to use someone elses work and pass it off on your own

The last question is a little more complicated.  Lets say that over the years you've gained knowledge on the ipod and you know how it works and various other details about it that you want to use in a paper you're writting about MP3 players.  Since you know this information and you're using your own information then you don't have to cite it.  Now if on the other hand you use other sources to check information you do need to cite it.  And depending on what you're writing the paper on, it really doesn't hurt to have more sources from well-known and reliable sources just to help make a stronger case.