Plagiarism

Many people think of plagiarism as copying another's work or borrowing someone's original ideas. But terms like "copying" and "borrowing" can disguise the seriousness of the offense. 

In other words, plagiarism is an act of  fraud. It involves both stealing someone's work, then lying about it afterwards.

Now you might ask if words and ideas can really be stolen? Well, to begin with, the expression of original ideas are considered to be intellectual property and is protected by copyright laws just like original inventions, as long as it is recorded in a medium such as a book, recording, or whatsoever.

These are considered as acts of plagiarism:

> turning in someone else's work as your own

Ah yes, most of us have done this. Even as little kids, in elementary, even as we grow up in high school, we have done this somehow. When for example, you are due to submit an art project and you nothing about art. You ask your mother or your siblings to "help" you make it, then when judgement day comes along, you tell your teacher straight in the eye that you've done it yourself.

This may have also happened in our adolescence age where we reach the age of reason. We start to think clearer, smarter, wiser, but all the more coniving. When asked to submit a project, assignment, or paper, we bribe our colleagues with money and favor to do the work for us. But take note, even if you do pay someone for their labor and efforts, you are still committing plagiarism if you declare it as your own.

> copying words or ideas from someone without giving them credit.

This probably reflects to most teens nowadays. The rise of Tumblr. Good grief. Dramatic, emotional, insecure, socialitical teenagers would post random pictures and stamping them with a a barrage of quotes and "wisdom words" without crediting the author or owner of the quote. For the sake of social praise, people would just about do anything. *sigh*

> failure to put a quotation in quotation marks. 

Now this, unlike others, is mostly accidentally committed. Some may forget to put a quotation in quotation marks probably because they are rushing or cramming, the like. In other words, an honest mistake.

> giving incorrect information about the source of a quotation

Ah this! When you are unsure of the author or source of a quotation you have used, try to look it up on the internet. When worse comes to worst, just say "credits to the respective owner/author" instead of just blatantly using it and placing "anonymous".

>  changing the words but copying the sentence structure of a source without giving credit

> copying so many ideas and words from your source that it makes up the majority of your work, whether you give credit or not

These last two are related. It doesn't matter if you do not copy the statement completely, word-by-word, but changing the words and retaining the entire meaning of the statement, changes nothing. You are still plagiarising the work and and euphemisms like "I'm just paraphrasing" won't help you either. It's like taking my G-Tech pen, rubbing off my name and throwing the lid full of bite marks won't make it any more yours than it is mine. At the end of the day, it still belongs to me, I still bought it,

So before you tap your keys or stroke your pen, remember to make sure that the words you use aren't somebody else's.

Sources:

My good friend Merriam W.

http://www.plagiarism.org/plagiarism-101/what-is-plagiarism/