Help:Plagiarism

What is plagiarism?
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Many people think of plagiarism as copying another's work or borrowing someone else's original ideas. But terms like "copying" and "borrowing" can disguise the seriousness of the offense --

STOP! The above sentence has been plagiarized from a website. How do you find this out? If you are able to find text that is identical to it by searching on Google or Bing and it is posted after the publication date of the article without being cited or quoted, it is plagiarism! The above text is taken from http://www.plagiarism.org/plagiarism-101/what-is-plagiarism/.

Whenever you are writing a page or article, it is important to cite the source you get your information from. While you may have personal experience that can validate your information, it is always good to have sources that back up your personal experience. These sources may be another website or book. When doing so, you should follow proper citation guidelines. No one likes citing sources or following rules, but we need to make sure everyone gets credit for their work. Think of it like this:  you just worked a 40 hour work week, but didn't get paid for it. Instead, someone else got your paycheck, because they signed their name down for your hours. That's not fair, is it? No! So, cite sources where appropriate.

If the article or page you are writing has more than 25% of its material from other sources, you're also plagiarizing even if you're citing sources correctly. You can't submit something with your own name on it that's just a compilation of other peoples' work. Instead of doing that, link to the person's material or come up with original material and cite them as the source for the original content.

Stopping plagiarism is a step in the direction of becoming a better Wikia. If we can cite our sources and make our articles more original, we will have great content!