Chapter Seven

Chapter seven was probably one of the most important chapters we will have read in The Bedford Researcher.  Both high school and college especially experience a lot of plagiarism in their papers.  When writing my paper, I am going to want to make sure to stray far away from any sort of plagiarism.  This is where citing your sources come into play.  Your readers won't be able to determine which is your work and what was pulled from your sources.  If your readers suspect you are failing to acknowledge your source, it is likely they may not only doubt your credibility, but stop reading your paper as well.  Majority of the time, plagiarism is unintentionally done.  If you quote a passage without quotation marks or paraphrase the piece or aren't clear on distinguishing your own ideas from your sources, those are all forms of plagiarizing and can get you in serious trouble.  Now intentional plagiarism on the other hand includes creating fake sources, copying an entire document and using it for your own, buying a document online, and patchwork writing which is piecing together information from multiple sources without quoting them.  A lot of the times writers who plagiarize will say "it's easier" or "oh, I ran out of time" or "everybody cheats" or "I'm not a good writer" and so on with the excuses.  There are ways you can avoid plagiarism by conducting a knowledge inventory, taking notes carefully, distinguish your own ideas and the sources, and citing your sources.  When conducting a knowledge inventory, it is important to ask yourself three questions: What do you already know?  What don't you know?  What do you want to know?  Whether it's intentional or unintentional, it's not worth all the trouble you could get in for it.