Plagiarism and the Scholarly Conversation

What Is Plagiarism?

Plagiarism is the undocumented use of others' words and/or ideas. Citation is a way to avoid plagiarism by giving credit where credit is due.

Avoiding plagiarism is a mark of high-quality learners, researchers, and writers.

The Scholarly Conversation

In any study of a subject, people engage in a “conversation” of sorts, where they read/listen to others’ ideas, consider them with their own viewpoints, and then develop their own stance.

It is important in this “conversation” to acknowledge when we use someone else’s words or idea. If we didn’t come up with it ourselves, we need to tell our readers who did come up with it.