Plagiarism is using the words or ideas of someone else as though they were your own.
 

Carefully citing your sources:

gives credit to authors whose works you have used creates a trail so others can find the materials you used provides evidence of your research is the ethical & standard practice for students and scholars

Plagiarism is presenting the words or ideas of someone else as your own without proper acknowledgment of the source. In the United States, we consider our words and ideas intellectual property; like a bicycle or any other possession, we believe our words belong to us and cannot be used without our permission.

When you work on a research paper and use supporting material from works by others, it's okay to quote people and use their ideas, but you do need to correctly credit them. Even when you summarize or paraphrase information found in books, articles, or Web pages, you must acknowledge the original author.