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Plagiarism Guide

You Might Be Plagiarizing If You...

  • Submit someone else's work as your own.
  • Buy a paper from a paper mill, website, or other source.
  • Cut and paste together phrases, ideas, and sentences from a variety of sources to write an essay
  • Copy words, art, or data from someone else's work--published or unpublished--without giving the original author credit.
  • Use an artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot to write your paper for you.

To learn more, watch this Video on Plagiarism.

Information must be Cited When

  • Copying three or more exact words from a published source of another person.
  • Paraphrasing or summarizing the ideas of the author of a published source.
  • Using facts, opinions, ideas, thoughts, feelings, and statistics created by others.
  • Using information from graphs, charts, pictures, tables, or other visuals from a source.
  • Using foundational knowledge of theories, practices, and processes, even if they are widely known (for example, Einstein's theory of relativity).

Source: DU Brief Guide to APA, Avoiding Plagiarism.