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Copyright Basics

Best Ways to Avoid Plagiarism

Tips for Avoiding Plagiarism

If you follow these general practices when creating your own work, you can avoid plagiarism and copyright violations.

Always remember to...

  • Provide full attribution when using other people's work.  This includes
    • text
    • images
    • musical works
    • sound recordings
    • audio visual content
  • Avoid copying & pasting directly from others.  Your work should come from your own ideas, thoughts, opinions, etc.
  • Cite sources when paraphrasing or using direct quotes from someone else's work.
  • Keep track of sources used in an assignment or project.  Use a citation tool like RefWorks to manage sources and create reference lists.