Whenever students draw on another's work, they must specify what
they borrowed, whether facts, opinions, or quotations, and where
they borrowed it from. Using another person's documented ideas
or expressions in one's writing without acknowledging the source
constitutes plagiarism.
http://pnp.aub.edu.lb/general/conductcode/158010081.html
As you can see, AUB
does not tolerate plagiarism and if you present plagiarized
assignments you are jeopardizing your career. In addition to going
against the university regulations, plagiarism also contravenes
ethics and respect for other people's intellectual creations. The
same way you want people to acknowledge as yours the work you
produce, you need to acknowledge other peoples’ ideas as their
property. As Trivedi and Williams (2003) point out in
Using Sources:
Drawing on the ideas of others as you develop your own is an
essential and exciting component of intellectual work. Whenever
you use other writers’ ideas, however, you must acknowledge your
sources. Doing so allows you to distinguish between your ideas
and those of others; it directs your readers to relevant
sources; and it allows you to give credit where credit is due.
By plagiarizing you
are missing the unique opportunity to learn what will make you a
well prepared, and responsible professional. As President Waterbury
says in The Parable of Harry's Luncheonette: Institutional
Integrity at AUB,
It is true
that in cheating, you cheat yourself. This is not merely a
cliché. You deprive yourself from truly learning when you buy or
steal knowledge or steal answers. You deny yourself the joy of
mastering a subject or a discipline. You deny yourself the
development of your mind [...] Finally
you will cheat society, because you will claim, after
graduation, to be somebody who you are not. Your credentials
will be partially false, and you are very likely to suspect the
credentials of anyone like you. (http://www.aub.edu.lb/activities/public/2003/opening-ceremony.html)
The first step is to learn about proper citation of research sources
and about copyright. You should also discuss these issues thoroughly
with your classmates and with your instructor to make sure you
understood them correctly.
AUB's University Libraries have
several manuals on proper citation of sources. One of them,
Gibaldi's The MLA Handbook for Writers of
Research Papers, Sixth Edition, 2003 has a very useful chapter on
Plagiarism. On page 75 you find the following Summing Up:
You have plagiarized if
You
took notes that did not distinguish summary and paraphrase
from quotation and then you presented wording from the notes
as if it were all your own.
While
browsing the Web, you copied text and pasted it into your
paper without quotation marks or citing the source.
You
presented facts without saying where you found them.
You
repeated or paraphrased someone’s wording without
acknowledgement.
You
took someone’s unique or particularly apt phrase without
acknowledgement.
You
paraphrased someone’s argument or presented someone’s line
of thought without acknowledgement.
You
bought or otherwise acquired a research paper and handed in
part or all of it as your own.
You can avoid plagiarism by
Making a list of the writers and viewpoints you discovered
in your research and using this list to double-check the
presentation of material in your paper.
Keeping the following three categories distinct in your
notes:
Your ideas, your summaries of others’ material and exact
wording you copy.
Identifying the sources of all material you borrow-exact
wording, paraphrase, ideas, arguments, and facts.
Checking with your instructor when you are uncertain about
your use of sources.
