"Plagiarism" means to present the words, ideas or work of someone else as your own without proper acknowledgement of the source.

If you don't credit the author, you are committing a type of theft called plagiarism.

When you work on a research paper you will probably find supporting material for your paper from works by others. It's okay to use the ideas of other people, but you do need to correctly credit them.

When you quote people -- or even when you summarize or paraphrase information found in books, articles, or Web pages -- you must acknowledge the original creator of the work.

You commit plagiarism when you

1. Buy or use a term paper written by someone else.
2. Copy passages from the Internet, a book, or an article and insert them into your paper without citing them.
3. Use the words, ideas or works of another person without citing them.
4. Paraphrase that person's words without citing them
5. Submit the same paper, or major portions, for more than one class without permission from the instructor.

The penalties for plagiarism at Idaho State University are clear. Plagiarism may result in expulsion from the university. Details can be found in the ISU Student Handbook.