Many student have failed courses and some have even had degrees withheld because of plagiarism. Most plagiarism, however, is accidental. It occurs when students are not aware of what constitutes plagiarism, or when they forget that a note they jotted down is really a direct quotation or that an idea they are using is actually someone else's. Still, accidental plagiarism is often dealt with just as harshly as intentional plagiarism. Plagiarism is not taken lightly in education, business, or anyplace else.
Plagiarism is theft .
In general, you must document all direct quotations, opinions, judgments, and insights of others that you summarize or paraphrase. You must also document information that is not well known, is open to dispute, or is not commonly accepted. Finally, document tables, graphs, charts, and statistics taken from a source. Common knowledge , information that you would expect most educated readers to know, need not be documented. Thus, you can use facts that are widely available in encyclopedias, textbooks, newspapers, and magazines without citing a source.