1. Plagiarism and Copyright
What is Copyright?

"Copyright" © refers to a body of law that establishes an author's right to own his or her works in the same way that a homeowner owns his or her home or you own your car.

Copyright protects artists, writers, and other creative people by ensuring that they, and only they, can profit from their work. Copyright is why it's illegal to copy and sell movies on DVD or download privately owned music from the Web without paying for it .

Most published research--including the books and journal articles you need for your academic research--is privately held, copyrighted material. This is why there are so many ebooks, databases, and journals that you can only access through the Library's web site: the Library has to pay annual fees to the copyright holders for the right to provide access to this intellectual property for you over the Web.

This is also why it's important that you give credit in your research projects to the authors whose words and ideas you use. Citing your resources by including authors' names and a bibliography whenever you present research both acknowledges the copyrights of the authors whose works you have used and protects you from allegations of plagiarism.

Click here to learn more about copyright and copyright law .