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Plagiarism
According to Webster's Third New International Dictionary to plagiarize is "to steal or pass off as one's own the ideas or words of another" or to "commit a literary theft: present as new or original an idea or product derived from an existing source."
In creating new works of scholarship, you are frequently expected to make use of the works of other authors to provide background for your work, to present claims that you intend to refute in your own work, or to provide supporting evidence for your own work. The key is to properly cite any of the following uses of another author's work:
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Direct quotations, either of original phrasing, tables, illustrations, sentences or whole paragraphs taken from another author's work
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Paraphrasing of another author's work, changing words or sentence structure
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Original ideas taken from other sources
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Summaries of another author's work or argument
Copyright is a LEGAL concept. Plagiarism is an ETHICAL concept. Both require that you acknowledge the original work of others.
The Clarkson Code of Student Conduct prohibits "all forms of academic dishonesty, including cheating, fabrication, plagiarism, and aiding and abetting of a dishonest act." Students should consult with their professors when they are unsure of how to incorporate the work of other authors into their own papers and presentations.
Some further sites for information on plagiarism:
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