Plagiarism and Copyright Infringment

As an IT professional, you will be expected to respect intellectual property rights. This means that you must take care to write in complete sentences and in your own words.

Plagiarism

Synthesize what you have read and rearticulate the ideas. Paraphrasing does not mean simply moving words around. Do not “copy and paste” text—that’s how trouble starts. Taking concepts from two or more sources and analyzing them together will help you to synthesize ideas that you can write in your own words.

Steps to avoid plagiarism: Read (taking notes on your reading)->Analyze->Synthesize->Compose.

Example:

Original source 1:
Security experts have documented a dramatic increase in bot-nets and root kits over the past three years.

Plagiarism:
Over the past 3 years, security experts have seen a huge increase in bot-nets and root kits.

Better:
Computer security experts have observed that the incidence of bot-nets and root-kits has increased markedly in recent years. (Note that the source for this specific fact should be cited in a footnote or inline citation.)

Note that this can be further improved.

Add concepts from original source 2:
Bot-nets are compromised computers managed by a hacker called a "bot herder." Bot-nets are being used for spam and to crack passwords.

Best:
Security experts who study such hacker tools as bot-nets and root kits have demonstrated that the incidence of such tools has risen markedly in recent years[citation]. A bot-net is a set of compromised computer systems that may be used for such crimes as sending spam or cracking passwords.

Both sources should be included in a references section.

Copyrights

Be careful not to infringe copyrights. While copyright laws provide for limited use of copyrighted material in non-electronic form for educational purposes ("Fair Use") this does not apply to web content, since distribution is not limited. You may not use pictures or other web content unless you have explicit permission or you can confirm that the material is in the public domain. If you use pictures or images, add a statement with each indicating the source or use with permission.