 Here's a focused beam from the Beam Library at Oklahoma Christian University, offering one-point instruction to empower students for better research and writing. The focus of this video, plagiarism, which is often understood as using another's words or ideas without appropriate citation. This definition seems simple enough, but avoiding plagiarism can sometimes be tricky simply because of the possibility for unintentional plagiarism, which most often occurs when sources of information are not clearly or properly cited. To avoid both intentional and unintentional plagiarism, it's a good idea to start your research and writing early. Don't wait until the last minute. Procrastination and plagiarism are good pals. But beyond time management, here's a simple way to help yourself avoid plagiarism. Just answer two questions. Where did I get my words? And where did I get my ideas? Let me illustrate how these questions help protect us from plagiarism. Here I've pulled a direct quotation from a scholarly article. The citation is provided in MLA formatting. Let me read out the quotation so that it's ringing in our ears. To be charitable, many people have no idea they are committing plagiarism. They use sources carelessly or falsely believe that information can be appropriated at will. One person's plagiarism is another person's research, isn't it? If it's on the net and it's free to use, why can't I just copy and paste it? Fortunately, we can overcome ignorance with education, so this aspect of plagiarism finds a ready solution. The question, where did I get my words, is answered here, signified by quotation marks setting off a direct quotation, as well as a citation in the appropriate format, which in this case is MLA. The question, where did I get my ideas, is answered here, through a paraphrase that still receives an appropriate citation. And below are examples of plagiarism. In other words, these are cases in which the two questions, where did I get my words and where did I get my ideas, were not adequately answered. Be sure to pay attention to the formatting style you are using, like MLA, APA, Stravian, etc. Lots of unintentional plagiarism occurs because of simple formatting errors. Plagiarism also occurs when we forget to put quotation marks around direct quotations, even if we include citation information. Here's a good rule of thumb. If you use three or more significant words from a source as a direct quotation, put quotation marks around them. They say the devil is in the details, but when it comes to plagiarism, attention to details can save your grade. So be sure that our two questions, where did I get my words and where did I get my ideas, are clearly answered in your papers and presentations, and you'll have empowered yourself to avoid plagiarism.