Which statement defines plagiarism?

• A. citing many sources
• B. unauthorized use of someone else's words or thoughts
• C. summarizing without quotes
• D. creating new content

Answer: (B)

Plagiarism is taking someone else’s words or ideas and presenting them as your own, without giving proper credit. That’s exactly what the statement describes: using another person’s words or thoughts without authorization or attribution, which misleads readers about who created the work. It isn’t just about copying large blocks of text; it includes rephrasing someone’s ideas too closely or failing to credit the original source.

To avoid plagiarism, you can quote directly with quotation marks and a citation, or you can paraphrase or summarize in your own words while still giving credit to the source. Citing many sources is good scholarly practice and helps show your research, not plagiarism. Summarizing or paraphrasing without quotes isn’t automatically plagiarism if you correctly attribute the idea to its source. Creating new content, on the other hand, is original work and isn’t plagiarism.