B. Plagiarism - Definition
Plagiarism is taking ideas or writings from another person and offering them as original ideas. Plagiarism has always been considered inappropriate, but the Internet makes it very easy to cut and paste ideas and writings of other people into documents.
As every student and teacher knows, researching information and incorporating the ideas and writings of others into their work is highly appropriate activity. This is how society has built its base of knowledge. But it is important that students learn to give credit where credit is due and not try to pass off anyone else's work as their own. When students use the work of others, it is also important that they to stay within the bounds of the "fair use doctrine" of copyright law.
There are some practical problems when it comes to avoiding plagiarism while doing research on the Internet. When people are engaged in Web "surfing" it is very easy to become focused on the ideas and forget to note the sources of those ideas. Backtracking to the source can be difficult. It is important that teachers help students to understand this difficulty and assist them in developing an efficient approach to keep track of and properly cite their sources.
Source:
Willard, Nancy,"A Legal and Educational Analysis of K-12 Internet Acceptable Use Policies", http://www.erehwon.com/k12aup/legal_analysis.html, (February, 1999)