BLOG #3: PLAGIARISM

Plagiarism is when someone takes someone else’s work and plays it off as their own. Not only is plagiarism morally wrong but doing so, even if it was unintentional, comes with serious consequences and penalties. The best way to avoid plagiarism is to know how to paraphrase and summarize another writer’s work in your own words. The Brief McGraw-Hill Handbook gives tips on how to avoid plagiarism. Some of those tips or guidelines are: writing your ideas down in one color and in a different color, those of others; not using something if you don’t remember where you got it from; not relying too much on one source; and citing the source of all ideas, opinions, facts, and statistics that are not common knowledge. Keeping these guidelines in mind when working on an assignment is important. Plagiarism is always wrong and “ignorance is no excuse.”