The only information you do not have to document is common knowledge or information most anyone with a common culture would know. We know that George Washington was the first president of the United States or that the Alamo is in San Antonio. You do not have to find a source for that type of information. What about common sayings such as “haste makes waste?” It is not plagiarism if you do not find the source for such phrases. However, if you can find the origin of the saying, in this case, from Benjamin Franklin’s Poor Richard’s Almanac, your paper will benefit from enhanced credibility.

There are several different ways to cite the materials you use in your projects. Make sure your teacher tells you what style to follow for your bibliography. Usually you will need to cite internally (inside the content of your project) and in a bibliography at the end of your project. Think of your bibliography as credits at the end of the film. Everyone who was involved in making the project possible deserves credit.

Internal citations in the paper itself are necessary after a direct quote, which should always be in quotation marks, or after an idea has been paraphrased, or put into your own words. These citations usually appear at the end of a sentence or paragraph.

All information sources used to create your paper or project must be in your bibliography, Works Cited, or Reference List. For example, you would cite books, newspaper articles, Internet pages, images, and multimedia information you included in your project.

Professors will often be able to tell if your writing or presentation is an original creation or from someone else. They also will want to make sure that the initial creator of the works used is being given proper credit. This practice is ethical and legal. If you didn't give credit properly, your integrity and class grade would likely suffer. Stealing words and ideas is considered theft.

Yes! Any information that comes from someone or something else should be cited, even if it is produced by artificial intelligence, such as ChatGPT . Each citation style has guidelines for how to give proper attribution for A.I. generated content.

• MLA Style
• APA Style 
• Chicago Manual of Style

• “Academic Integrity & Plagiarism.” Texas A&M University Libraries, https://library.tamu.edu/services/library_tutorials/academic_integrity/index.html.

• Citation Help
• Avoiding Plagiarism guide from Purdue University Online Writing Lab (OWL)
• Turnitin.com
• You Quote It, You Note It!- an interactive plagiarism prevention tutorial from Vaughn Memorial Library @ Acadia University in Nova Scotia