Avoid Plagiarism: Write it Right Workshop

Common knowledge is NOT considered plagiarism.  According to Rozakis, " 'common knowledge' is defined as the information an educated person is expected to know...Common knowledge falls into many categories. Here are some examples of common knowledge that you don't have to document:

• Leonardo da Vinci was a painter, scientist, and philosopher
• Mozart, Verdi, and Wagner all composed operas
• Shakespeare's tragedies include Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, and King Lear
• A clone is a genetic copy of an individual organism, arrived at through asexual reproduction in which the nucleas of a cell from the body of a single parent is stimulated to start dividing by itself
• Quid pro quo means 'something for something; tit for tat'
• The American Revolution began in 1775 when fighting erupted at Lexington and Concord, Massachussetts."

Rozakis, Laurie E., Ph.D. The Complete Idiot's Guide to Research Methods. New York: Alpha Books, 2004. Print.

A secondary source is a source you are citing that cited an ORIGINAL source of information.  In this case, you would cite the original source and include the phrase, "as cited in (secondary source)..." 

As stated by the University of Michigan's Research Guide, "collaboration is sometimes unacceptable when a student works with another or others on a project and then submits written work which is represented explicitly or implicitly as the student's own work. 

Equally unacceptable is submitting a group project in which you did little or none of the work yet you take the credit for the work done by others within your group."

You must also keep in mind that when instructor's say an essay or paper should be written individually, if you collaborate with someone else on the writing process, you are participating in unethical collaboration and potentially plagiarizing.