 Do you know what plagiarism is? You probably at least know that it is a bad thing that you want to avoid in your academic writing. Plagiarism can be defined as the practice of taking someone else's work or ideas and passing them off as one's own. This means that if you're writing an essay or a research paper, you have to cite the original sources of where the ideas that you are writing about are coming from. Any time that you are creating or writing a project for class that refers to or uses ideas from somewhere else, you have to cite those original sources. This applies even if you are explaining things in your own words, also referred to as paraphrasing. As you practice writing academic essays, your instructors are essentially asking you to do three things. First, in your writing, they want you to show that you have a clear understanding of the material you have read. Second, they want you to refer to your sources to support the ideas you have developed. This is why you need to cite the sources you have used. Finally, they want you to distinguish between your analysis of what you've read from the analysis of other authors. Any time you're bringing in or incorporating ideas from others into your writing, you need to provide a reference or a citation where you found that information. If you're using an author's words exactly, be sure to include quotation marks and also include an in-text citation. These internal citations are notes that acknowledge the source. Your reader can refer to your work cited page at the end of your paper. For detailed information that will allow the reader, such as your professor, to go find the original article that you're referring to. When you properly cite your sources, you are furthering the scholarly conversation and giving credit to the individuals whose thoughts and ideas have contributed to your work. Exactly what these citations look like will depend on what citation style is required by your professor. For the purposes of this course, you will be using an MLA style guide to help you accurately reference information. IRSC has a detailed MLA lip guide to help you format your writing projects and avoid accidental plagiarism. On this lip guide, you will find multiple examples of MLA citations, a downloadable MLA template to assist you in formatting your paper, and contact information for IRSC librarians. You are encouraged to contact a librarian if you get stuck or have any questions about your MLA citations and formatting during the writing process.