Not to do so is to plagiarize , to intentionally or unintentionally appropriate the ideas, language, key terms, or work of another without sufficient acknowledgment that such material is not one's own. Whenever you draw on another's work, you must specify what you borrowed whether facts, opinions, or quotations and where you borrowed it from. Using another person's ideas or expressions in your writing without acknowledging the source constitutes plagiarism. In short, to plagiarize is to give the impression that you wrote or thought something that you in fact borrowed from someone, and to do so is a violation of professional ethics.
Plagiarism encompasses a range of errors and violations.
In all cases, it is far better to contact one's instructor and honestly to discuss with him or her a strategy for completing an assignment rather than to risk humiliation and judicial recrimination. Instructors will, within reason and to the best of their abilities, help you to get your papers started and help you to make progress with your work. You will do yourself and your instructors justice if you openly and squarely discuss the circumstances of your progress or lack thereof. On occasion, students accused of plagiarism have claimed that their plagiarism has occurred without their knowledge or intent. Since ignorance of convention is not a reasonable defense, it is best to become thoroughly acquainted both with the various ways in which plagiarism is construed, and with the conventions of source attribution and proper documentation.