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Media Literacy: Plagiarism

By the end of this instruction you should be able to understand what plagiarism is and when to cite your sources in order to avoid it.

When to Cite

You will always need to cite your sources when:

  • When you quote two or more words verbatim, or even one word if it is used in a way that is unique to the source.
  • When you are introducing facts that you found in a source such as a book, magazine, website, or journal.
  • When you paraphrase or summarize ideas that are not your own.
  • When you are using an image such as a photograph, infographic, or drawing that was made by someone other than yourself.
  • When you use factual information that is not considered common knowledge.

 

This unit is adapted from the Plagiarism Tutorial created by the University of Southern Mississippi. This work licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) 4.0 International License.

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