An essay must be checked for plagiarism before turning it in to a teacher or professor. Plagiarism is the use of another person's ideas or statements without documenting this outside source in order to attribute the proper credit to the person who came up with the idea or made the statement. Quotations are obvious examples that require documentation with in-text citations, footnotes and/or
. references in a bibliography or works cited section. However, more than just direct quotations require documentation of an outside source. Outside sources include any sort of printed material; works of art like films, television shows, songs, poems, or multi-media presentations; interviews and speeches, even if only heard or on tape; and electronic media such as web pages.The rule of thumb in all essays is to document everything that the author does not think up for himself or herself. This includes facts, ideas, verbal statements called quotations, inventions, discoveries, and portions of works of art. The exception to documenting a fact or idea occurs when the fact or idea is so widespread that it may be found in at least three sources. The occurrence of an armed conflict can generally be found documented in many places, so writers are not required to document a source when stating that a war occurred on a certain date in a particular place. However, if the author claims a person to have been in that conflict at a certain time and in a particular place, then at least three sources must verify this fact without the author naming the source that says the person was there.The most common plagiarism mistake involves using an idea from a source without admitting by documentation that the idea is someone else's original idea. For example, if a sentence is rearranged into different words but says the same basic idea or statement as the original, then credit must be given to the original author to avoid plagiarism. This is commonly known as paraphrasing and still requires documentation, despite the fact that the words may not be the exact same words.
