What are some basic principles you should follow in order to avoid plagiarism?
Anyone else’s words and ideas can be used if you reference (cite) their source. If you use the exact words, put them in quotation marks. If you have restated someone else’s ideas in your own words, a practice called paraphrasing, the source still needs to be indicated. Taking a sentence from the Internet, rearranging the words a bit, and substituting one or two words is not acceptable unless you cite the source. Generally, you should avoid this practice as plagiarism might be viewed as probably having occurred under certain circumstances, and you may also be violating copyright restrictions. The source of facts that are very widely known, such as saying that people are held to the Earth by gravity, need not be cited. If you are unsure how widely known something is, and you found it in a specific source, cite the source. Too little citation is far worse than too much. If the fact is controversial, cite its source. Our intellectual traditions are based on finding, reflecting upon, and ad
