Resources and guides for how to cite sources and information on what you can cite under fair use law, and how to avoid plagiarism.

Citing Sources

When you use other sources for your papers or assignments, you are expected to cite them in order to give credit to those whose work you used. If you don’t cite the sources, it’s considered plagiarism (see Plagiarism link). Before you begin citing your sources, ask your instructor what bibliographic style or format he or she prefers to use (MLA, APA, Chicago, etc.). 

When citing your sources, you have the option of building them from scratch or using one of the many citation generators.

The following are some reliable citation generators.

Copyright & Plagiarism

Copying a large portion of a book, magazine, song, photograph, or electronic resource violates copyright law.

Part of the Copyright Law refers to Fair Use.  Under Fair Use, you may temporarily use materials that are copyrighted for purposes of education.  If you intend to use a work for more than a limited time (greater than six months), you need to obtain written permission from the original author, creator, or publisher of the work.  Many times works (writings, images, etc.) will have directions for obtaining copyright permission from the author or the publisher.

Try to use graphics from pages or resources that clearly give you permission to use their materials. If you use a graphic, photograph, or screen shot for a presentation, make sure you use the © symbol, the name of the creator of the image and the copyright date. Include the copyright information beside or under the image. Some useful sites for free, copyright-free images are pixabay.com, pexels.com, and unsplash.com.

Plagiarism is the use of someone else’s work as your own. When you submit work for credit that includes someone else’s work, the source must be acknowledge by use of accurate citation.

Whenever you find information you want to use for a project, keep a record of the bibliographic information (author, title, publisher, place of publication, copyright date, date accessed, etc.)  Give credit in the body (text) of the document and on your Reference/Works Cited page.

Examples of plagiarism:

  • Obtaining a paper from another student and submitting it as your own
  • Copying and pasting sections from the internet without acknowledging the sources
  • Using the exact written words from a work without quoting the source
  • Paraphrasing someone’s written ideas in your own words without acknowledging them

Copyright on Campus Video

Contact Us