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Plagiarism FAQ
What is Plagiarism?
In "Helping Student Avoid Plagiarism" Stephen Wilhoit lists the following types of plagiarism:
Buying a paper for a research service or term paper mill.
Turning in another student's work without that student's knowledge.
Turning in a paper a peer has written for the student.
Copying a paper from a source text without proper acknowledgment.
Copying materials from a source text, supplying proper documentation, but leaving out quotation marks.
Paraphrasing materials from a source text without appropriate documentation.
Or see http://condor.bcm.tmc.edu/Micro-Immuno/courses/igr/plagdef.html for more in-depth definitions
But isn't that what this site is about?
NO! Planet Papers does make student-written essays available to students, but we do not encourage plagiarism. The essays on this site are useful to get ideas, quotes, bibliographies or another viewpoint when writing your own essay.
So what do I do if I want to use an idea, quote etc from an essay on this site?
Cite it. If you are expected to cite resources, your teacher will probably have told you the correct format. You may need to consult your school/university's style guide for more information (many of these are available online).
Here are some links for some of the major citation methods:
MLA Style - documenting sources from the WWW
Citing information from the Internet and the WWW - APA style
Yes, but will I get caught if I plagiarize?
It depends on your teacher, and how well he/she knows your writing style and ability. There are also services like plagiarism.org and plagiarism.com that allow teachers to check. And remember: if you were able to download an essay, so too can your teacher!
In Summary
Don't do it!
Some other sites about plagiarism
Plagiarism - Useful links for teachers and students.
Plagiary and the Art of Skillful Citation
Cut-and-Paste Plagiarism: Preventing, Detecting and Tracking Online Plagiarism
Plagiarism and other Scholastic No-No's
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