Got bored with the book, so I’m moving on. Back to writing tips!
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Well, August is over and it’s now September. Today, I decided to write a few thoughts on plagiarism, since it’s been on my mind lately.
Plagiarism is the taking of someone else’s words or ideas without permission and passing them off as your own. That means if you see something cool online and reword it–but it’s still the same idea–you are guilty of plagiarism. There is one exception–if the information is common knowledge. The trick is to determine what is common knowledge and what isn’t.
How do you know what is common knowledge and what isn’t? I suppose common sense. You know if you are writing about something that anyone could know or if you’re taking someone else’s idea. When in doubt, just ask or cite the person. Technically, the only reason you can cite without permission is if you are writing a scholarly work, a news article or things like that. You can find out more at the copyright website: copyright.gov (that’s for the US).
Anyway, take plagiarism seriously because you wouldn’t like it if someone stole your idea.
Later,