Chapter 7: Avoiding Plagiarism

This chapter describes the different types of plagiarism, what are research ethics, what is common knowledge, when to ask permission for certain sources, how you can avoid plagiarism, and how to react if you are ever accused of plagiarizing information. There are three main types of plagiarism which include unintentional plagiarism, intentional plagiarism, and plagiarism in group projects. Research ethics includes an honest exchange of information, ideas, and arguments among writers and researchers who share an interest in a topic issue. It is very important to respect this because you want writers and readers to take you seriously. Common knowledge is information that is widely known, and with common knowledge you have to be careful when including it in your paper to make sure it’s a true fact or statement. To avoid plagiarism, you should take notes carefully, conduct a knowledge inventory, distinguish your ideas and thoughts and the information drawn from your sources, make in text citations and a works cited page to validate your information, and recognize misconceptions about intentional plagiarism. This was a helpful chapter because it gives me tips to avoid unintentional plagiarism which can be kind of common when writing a research paper.