According to the MSU Billings Academic Conduct Guidelines:
Plagiarism is presenting the work of another as one's own without proper acknowledgment. Examples of plagiarism include submitting as one's own work the work of another student, ghost writer or commercial writing service; directly quoting from a source without acknowledgment; paraphrasing or summarizing another's work without acknowledging the source; or using facts, figures, graphs, charts, or information without acknowledging the source. Plagiarism may occur orally or in writing and may involve computer programs and files, research designs, distinctive figures of speech, ideas and images or any other information that belongs to another person and is not acknowledged as such. Inadvertent or unintentional misuse or appropriation of another's work (such as relying heavily on source material that is not expressly acknowledged) is still considered plagiarism. It is also considered Plagiarism when collaborating on work with the knowledge that the collaboration is not authorized or will not be reported. (p.8-9)
Plagiarism may take many forms:
It does not matter whether you intended to plagiarize or whether the plagiarism occurred unintentionally; it still constitutes academic dishonesty. Ignorance of the rules of correct citation is not an acceptable excuse.
Plagiarism and other forms of academic dishonesty can subject a student to disciplinary action under the university Student Code of Conduct.
What is a citation and why do we cite our sources?
This video from the NC State University explains. This video is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States license.
To avoid plagiarizing:
Think plagiarism is just an issue for college students writing research papers? Think again! Check out these real world examples of celebrities being accused of plagiarizing.