Glossary of Terms-Plagiarism

Plagiarism: Plagiarism is commonly defined as the unacknowledged appropriation of the words, graphic images, or ideas of another person. In some instances, the concept of plagiarism is applied to musical creations. Plagiarism is theft of credit and covers ideas as well as forms of expression and should be distinguished from copyright violation, which does not cover ideas but only forms of expression and is a matter of intellectual property violation rather than credit. Note that even if one use the words (form of expression) from a document that is " in the public domain" (not privately owned), one would then not be guilty of copyright violation. However, if one did not acknowledge the source of the words, one would be guilty of plagiarism.; Students sometimes are confused about plagiarism because they have been encouraged to paraphrase sources in their K-12 studies.

Several points are offered here for clarification.

There is no amount of rephrasing that makes it acceptable to use the work of others without acknowledgement.
Other's work is properly used in one's own work when one builds on it or synthesizes it with other work. To build on or synthesize other's work, one has to understand it, so it is not appropriate to offer a paraphrase of something unless one understands it and can explain it in very different words.
Quotations or near quotations should be enclosed in quotation marks with "[" "]" used to indicate any words that one has changed in the material.
Plagiarism is no more acceptable in a draft than in a final version of work submitted as one's own, although in a draft, it may be enough to informally indicate the source (including page number for quotations and paraphrases), rather than give a formal bibliographic citation