Citing

When you write papers, you might be tempted to plagiarize to try to cover up the fact that almost all of your paper came directly from sources or that you relied heavily on the internet for your research. Your professors will not be fooled by this tactic.Part of your job as a researcher and writer is to organize, and recast your information in your own form. If you find yourself doing such things as using the same source for several paragraphs in a row or failing even to provide your own topic sentences for paragraphs, you are obviously not doing your job as a thinking writer. Do not fall back on the excuse that you might as well just copy it exactly as it appeared because you “like the way it was written.” The context for your writing is different from the context of the original. The reason you use sources in the first place is to simplify and summarize information and weave it into the pattern of your own ideas, and your pattern of ideas will develop as you write and do your research.

The information that you research is there to help support your topic, and write a paper that is factual and from your own view point. The purpose of the paper is defeated if all the ideas belong to someone else.