Citing Sources - Avoiding Plagiarism: Home

Here is a brief list of what needs to be credited or documented: 

• Words or ideas presented in a magazine, book, newspaper, song, TV program, movie, website, computer program, letter, advertisement, or any other medium
• Information you gain through interviewing or conversing with another person, face to face, over the phone, or in writing
• When you copy the exact words or a unique phrase
• When you reprint any diagrams, illustrations, charts, pictures, or other visual materials
• When you reuse or repost any digital media, including images, audio, video, or other media

There are certain things that do not need documentation or credit, including: 

• Writing your own lived experiences, your own observations and insights, your own thoughts, and your own conclusions about a subject
• When you are writing up your own results obtained through lab or field experiments
• When you use your own artwork, digital photographs, video, audio, etc. 
  When you are using "common knowledge," things like folklore, common sense observations, myths, urban legends, and historical events (but not historical documents)
• When you are using generally accepted facts (e.g., pollution is bad for the environment) including facts that are accepted within particular discourse communities (e.g., in the field of composition studies, "writing is a process" is a generally accepted fact). 

“Frequently Asked Questions Regarding Plagiarism.” Plagiarism FAQs - Purdue OWL® - Purdue University, owl.purdue.edu/owl/avoiding_plagiarism/plagiarism_faq.html. Accessed 8 May 2023.

"Citation, Quotation, and Paraphrase: Rhetoric & Composition (Study Hall)." Narrated by Emily Zarka. YouTube, 6 Feb. 2023, youtu.be/3Ue14VonjNY.

"Why You Need to Cite Sources" YouTube, uploaded by OLSIS Secondary Videos, June 4, 2017,  https://youtu.be/4v9mRHivjX4.