Although plagiarism has been a problem throughout history, it is especially important now for students to give it their prompt attention. Students often times plagiarize and they do that by unintentionally plagiarizing which simply means they were copying and did not document correctly or they did not have enough knowledge on exactly what it is that they were writing. (Hult, Huckin) (Page 238). Unintentionally or intentionally both of them have a consequence.
According to The New Century Handbook, "plagiarism is defined as the unauthorized or misleading use of the language and text of another author." "Whenever you use the work of others, paraphrase or summarize another author's work you must acknowledge them and give credit where it's due." (Hult, Huckin) (Page 238). "When you acknowledge the work of others it's called documenting the source." "If you do then when you are writing and taking notes and are conscious writing and writing legibly you can avoid plagiarism unintentionally or intentionally." (Carolyn Horner).
"Any quotes or words taken from another authors work you must put it in quotation marks and properly document it with authors name and page number to use it for reference in case something isn't quite clear or someone wants to go back and check what you have documented as it being correct. Validity is another good tool to use when documenting. You cannot only document the parts of someone else's work that you think is important. You must document it as it stated. It is better to over document than to under document." (Carolyn Horner) Common knowledge does not need to be documented if everyone knows it or it is something that you can go find in a encyclopedia from a credible source." (Hult, Huckin) (Page 238).
According to the South University Student Handbook, "plagiarism can lead to expulsion, dismal from the class or even a failing grade and this will go on your record.
