Plagiarism: Presenting someone's ideas as your own

Students are taught that when they research a topic credit must be given to the author or authors of the articles or websites they used in their research. All information should be written by the student in their own words. The author's words should never be copied and pasted from a website into the student's document. Students are required to have a "Work Cited" page at the end of their project. This page should contain all of the resources the student used when they were researching. Images must also be cited.

Plagiarism includes, but is not limited to:

• copying text, images, charts, or other materials from digital or print sources without proper citation;
• intentional misrepresentation of work as your own by paraphrasing of items from digital or print sources without proper citation;
• using translation tools or resources to translate sentences or passages without permission;
• using a thesis, hypothesis, or idea obtained from another source without proper citation.

For more information on this topic, please visit: http://plagiarism.org/plagiarism-101/what-is-plagiarism

Please take time to have your child read their completed project to you. Listen carefully to your child's use of words in their sentences. You can hear the difference between an author’s choice of words and your child’s. Ask your child what resources he/she used. Review those resources with your child to compare information. It is not "Fair Use" to copy most or all of the authors ideas and words.