Plagiarism

"You shall not steal"

- Ten Commandments

Plagiarism is an act of stealing someone's work without giving them any credit. This is a serious act because someone's idea, work, or anything created using his mind is considered as an intellectual property. We all know that stealing any properties are against the law including intellectual property. According to the U.S. law, "The expression of original ideas is considered intellectual property and is protected by copyright laws, just like original inventions. Almost all forms of expression fall under copyright protection as long as they are recorded in some way (such as a book or a computer file)."

There are many ways to prevent plagiarism. The first way is to properly cite where you got the idea or work from. First is Modern Language Association (MLA) style which is a brief parenthetical citations in the text and An alphabetical list of works cited that corresponds to the in-text citations and appears at the end of the research paper. It is most commonly used to write papers and cite sources within the liberal arts and humanities. 

 

For example,

 "Blueprint Lays Out Clear Path for Climate Action." Environmental Defense Fund. Environmental Defense Fund, 8 May 2007. Web. 24 May 2009

(from https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/12/)

Another example is APA (American Psychological Association) style is most commonly used to cite sources within the social sciences. You should even be careful in selecting certain words or terms to increase clarity, avoid bias, and control how your readers will receive your information. Writing papers in APA Style is unlike writing in more creative or literary styles that draw on poetic expressions and figurative language.

For example,

Van Roon, A., Mulder, L., Althaus, M., and Mulder, G. (2004). Introducing
a baroflex model for studying cardiovascular effects of mental workload. Psychophysiology, 41, 961–981.

(from https://www.princeton.edu/pr/pub/integrity/pages/styles/)