Plagiarism can be intentional or unintentional.
Intentional plagiarism involves deliberate copying or use of another s words or ideas.
Unintentional plagiarism usually results from ignorance of the rules for citing sources or from sloppy research and note-taking. Even if plagiarism is unintentional, it is still a violation of university policy. When you do use another person s words, use quotation marks and give credit to thesource, either within the text or in a footnote. Don t make slight variations in the language and then fail to give credit to the source. If the expression is essentially the same, the original source still deserves credit.