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Plagiarism

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Plagiarism

The JSCC Catalog and your course syllabi outline the college's Academic Dishonesty Policy, including this explanation of plagiarism: "Plagiarism is defined as presenting someone else's work, including the work of other students, as one's own. Students have plagiarized when they have failed to properly document the original ideas of others. Any ideas or wording taken from an original source for written or verbal use must be cited within the assignment."

This page provides resources to help you understand and avoid plagiarism.

Plagiarism FAQ

1. What is plagiarism?

Reread the definition from the college catalog at the top of the page. Notice that plagiarism involves "presenting someone else's work" as your own: even changing words or sentence structure from the original does not make something your own work. It's okay to incorporate others' words or ideas as long as they are properly cited, but the bulk of a paper should be your ideas and analysis – your work.

2. How should I use outside sources (without plagiarizing)?

3. What do you mean by "cite your sources"?

4. I only have to cite direct quotations, right?

5. Can't I just use a thesaurus to change the words?

6. Is it possible to plagiarize by accident?

7. What if the source isn't copyrighted?

8. What if I'm doing a research project that isn't a paper?

9. Can you help me?

Free Plagiarism Checkers

Plagiarism materials

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James Sprunt Community College, P.O. Box 398, 133 James Sprunt Drive, Kenansville, NC 28349 | (910) 296-2400