Plagiarism is the intentional or accidental misrepresentation of someone else's work, ideas, or words as your own. UCF's Golden Rule is very strict about plagiarism--academic integrity is crucial in university study.

To avoid plagiarism, you should be sure to cite any materials from which you've taken information in proper fashion. The UWC has style guides, handouts, and webpages that can help you in correctly documenting your work.

Common knowledge--information that can be found in many sources and is generally widely known--does not need to be cited. An example of common knowledge is "The United States landed on the moon in 1969" or "UCF is a large public university in Orlando."

The Quoting and Paraphrasing handout on the UWC website covers the two ways to include outside information in your essay. Basically, you can quote information (using the exact words of a source) or paraphrase (rephrase information from a source in your own words). Both quotation and paraphrase require correct citation format.

According to the Holt Handbook, you risk plagiarizing when you use specific phrasing and words from the original source without quoting them, or if you closely imitate the style, structure, and syntax of the original. The passage below provides an example.

Original source: "Why Braveheart is Bad," by Julie Cross

Mel Gibson's Braveheart tries to convince the audience that William Wallace, the 14th-century Scottish warrior and rebel, was actually a handsome, multi-lingual scholar who not only makes love to the Princess of Wales, but is the father of her future child. This romantic nonsense is not based on historical fact, and dooms what could have been an interesting and worthwhile film.

Plagiarism: Julie Cross, a film reviewer, writes that the problems of William Wallace's character in Braveheart dooms what could have been an interesting and worthwhile film (23).

This is plagiarism because the exact phrasing from the last sentence of Cross's essay is presented as the writer's own words.

Correct Using Quotation: Julie Cross, a film reviewer, writes that the problems of William Wallace's character in Braveheart "dooms what could have been an interesting and worthwhile film" (23).

Correct Using Paraphrase: Julie Cross, a film reviewer, writes that the problems of William Wallace's character in Braveheart ruin the film because of historical inaccuracies (23).

You also risk plagiarism if you imitate the style, syntax, or structure of the original source too closely. Just changing a few words but keeping the same sentence structure is still plagiarism.

Original source: "Why Braveheart is Bad," by Julie Cross

Mel Gibson's Braveheart tries to convince the audience that William Wallace, the 14th-century Scottish warrior and rebel, was actually a handsome, multi-lingual scholar who not only makes love to the Princess of Wales, but is the father of her future child. This romantic nonsense is not based on historical fact, and dooms what could have been an interesting and worthwhile film.

Plagiarism: Braveheart, by Mel Gibson, attempts to persuade the viewers that William Wallace, a medieval fighter from Scotland, was really an attractive student of languages who has sex with the Princess of Wales and fathers her child. This idealistic silliness is not founded in real history, and destroys what might have been an intriguing and rewarding movie (23).

This passage simply substitutes synonyms for the words in the original. It keeps the same sentence structure, ideas, and style, and so would be considered plagiarism.

Correct Paraphrase: In her article "Why Braveheart is Bad," Julie Cross notes that unrealistic ideas in the movie, including William Wallace's knowledge of language and his relationship with the Princess, harm the overall effect of the film (23).

This summarizes some of the ideas in the original, using its own style, structure, diction, tone, and pace.