Student Blog: Warning: Don't Plagiarize!

Hey y’all! Welcome back to my blog. This time, I will be discussing a very important topic, which is maintaining academic integrity. I’ll cut to the chase: don’t plagiarize! Plagiarism, simply put, is when you copy someone else’s intellectual property, AKA their work. It’s not cool. It can lose you a scholarship or even get you thrown out of your school. So, like I said, don’t plagiarize! 

Think about it this way: you’ve just come up with an awesome idea for a final project. You’re so excited about it that you tell your best friend. Your best friend is presenting right before you, and they present your idea as their own! Wouldn’t that feel awful? That is what it’s like to have your work plagiarized. I’m going to say it again: don’t plagiarize!

Also, use correct formatting. Use Chicago for history, MLA for English, and APA for science. Their citations are slightly different. A citation is what you use to tell your reader where you got particular information. There are in-text citations, and works cited (MLA) or bibliography (Chicago and APA) citations. In-text citations go directly after the quotation or paraphrase within your paragraph. Works cited lists and bibliographies go on a separate page at the end of your paper. If you’re not sure which format you should put your paper’s citations in, google it.

Do you want to know a fun fact about plagiarism? You can plagiarize yourself. Yup, you read that correctly. If you copy or reference work that you have previously made without the proper citation, that’s still plagiarism and will still have serious consequences. How do I know this? I accidentally did it once. When I was in 9th grade, I accidentally used oa single sentence from a previous paper I had written, and my teacher alerted the school administration. I was lucky to come out of that one alive. Ok, not really, but I still could have faced disastrous consequences. So, if you take away anything from this, do not plagiarize. 

I just learned a really great tool for citations, which are vital in avoiding plagiarism. If you go into Microsoft Word and then go to the references tab, they will make your citation for you. You choose your format (Chicago, APA, or MLA), and click “insert citation.” Then, you choose what type of source you are referencing and fill in all the boxes with its information. Then, if you want an in-text citation, you choose that option. If you want a works cited or bibliography with all the sources you’ve inputted so far, you click “bibliography.” I think that’s the coolest thing since sliced bread. All throughout high school, I was making citations by hand. This trick is going to save me a bunch of time, and I hope it will for you too.

Well, I hope you’ve learned something today. I am going to repeat it one last time: DO NOT PLAGIARIZE! That’s all I have for you today. Until next time, I am sending you good luck and good vibes.