Plagiarism Plagiarism Many students arrive at college with a shaky concept of plagiarism and how to avoid committing it. Most of us can quickly grasp that when we use someone's exact words, we need to give credit to the author. What is harder for some people to understand is that we also need to give credit when we use someone's ideas . That means that changing the exact wording of a piece of writing doesn't eliminate the need to give credit to the original author. This can get tricky when you've read several articles on a certain subject and start to lose track of whose ideas are whose.
Plagiarism is considered a very serious offense in the academic community.
Professors can loose their jobs if they commit plagiarism and would have a difficult time finding another in academia. Students at SUNY Cobleskill face academic discipline and may be dismissed from the affected course. This is spelled out in the Academic Policies section of the College Catalog. The good news is that there is plenty of help for learning how to properly cite your sources and that there is really no reason to plagiarize. Careful citing of your sources indicates good scholarship and an understanding of the literature.