USE YOUR OWN WORDS AND IDEAS

Practice is essential to learning. Each time you choose your words, order your thoughts, and convey your ideas, you can improve your writing.

GIVE CREDIT FOR COPIED, ADAPTED, or PARAPHRASED MATERIAL

If you repeat another's exact words, you MUST use quotation marks and cite the source. If you adapt a chart or paraphrase a sentence, you must still cite. Paraphrase means that you restate the author's ideas, meaning, and information in your own words (see examples).

AVOID USING OTHERS' WORK WITH MINOR "COSMETIC" CHANGES

Examples: using "less" for "fewer," reversing the order of a sentence, changing terms in a computer code, or altering a spread sheet layout. If the work is essentially the same, give credit.

THERE ARE NO "FREEBIES." 

ALWAYS cite words, information, and ideas you use if they are new to you (learned in your research). No matter where
you find it -- even in an encyclopedia or on the Internet -- you cite it!

BEWARE OF "COMMON KNOWLEDGE." 

You don't have to cite "common knowledge," BUT the fact must really be commonly known. That Abraham Lincoln was the U.S. President during the Civil War is common knowledge; that over 51,000 Union and Confederate soldiers died in the Battle of Gettysburg4 is not.

WHEN IN DOUBT, CITE. 

Better to be safe than not give credit when you should!