You may often wonder why teachers get so crazy about Works Cited lists or Bibliographies.  Have you ever heard of plagiarism?  If you commit plagiarism, you're actually committing a crime!

Without providing the sources of your information or images, you are guilty of plagiarism.

So what is considered plagiarism? Using another person’s words or images in your work and passing it off as your own. This includes any of the following actions:

• Copying and pasting text or images from a web site without giving credit to the author
• Not using quotation marks to show words not written by yourself
• Providing incorrect information in your Works Cited list
• Plagiarism can be unintentional

While the Internet makes it quick and easy to do research for school projects, it also presents the temptation for students to copy and paste information from an online source and pass it off as their own. Just like writing the text word-for-word from a book or magazine, this is considered plagiarism.

Can you tell that plagiarism is a big deal?  It is really important that you understand what it is and what the consequences are at your school for doing it. 

Your teachers are trained to look for plagiarism, and there are many online tools available to help them detect when it occurs. Knowing how you can get caught may actually help you avoid getting caught. 

There are many online tools available for teachers to check for plagiarism this day in age. The next activity will give you a look at an online plagiarism checker that any of your teachers could be using