#3 - Plagiarism

Plagiarism is when you take someone else's words and ideas and play them off as your own without citing and giving the originator credit. Sometimes, however, a piece of information can be considered common knowledge and you won't have to cite it.

According to the Brief McGraw-Hill Handbook, "information that an audience could be expected to know from many sources is considered common knowledge." In a paper, if you say that a platypus is a mammal that lays eggs instead of giving live birth, you don't need to cite it because most people already know that. If you write about a genetic difference between platypuses and other monotremes, then you would have to cite the information because most of your audience would not know this.

Common knowledge includes well-known folktales that have no exact author, common sense, facts and dates from history, and knowledge that is found in many general references. The Handbook mentions that "maps, charts, graphs, and other visual displays of information aren't considered common knowledge... if you reproduce a map... you must credit the map's creator." For instance, you can say that the United States is in the northwestern hemisphere of the globe, but if you have an actual map in your text, you have to credit the source that the specific map came from.