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Plagiarism

What needs a citation?
Quotations
Ideas from sources rewritten in your own words (Paraphrase).
Statistics or facts

What doesn't need a citation?

Common Knowledge
The core of knowledge that most educated people have is called "common knowledge" and does not have to be cited: it is considered the common property of society. This includes:

famous quotations:

"I have a dream." — Martin Luther King
"To be, or not to be. That is the question." — Shakespeare

and ideas:

The First Amendment to the United States Constitution protects the right of free speech for all citizens.
Most major religions say death is a release from the pain of life, not a dreaded event.

and facts and statistics:

Shakespeare lived in England 400 years ago and wrote the play Hamlet.
DDT spraying 25 years ago still pollutes water today and kills fish and birds.
The speed of light is 186,000+ miles per second.

You may not know all of these, but they would be considered common knowledge by most educated people. They do not require citations of bibliographic entries. If you go to a higher degree of specific knowledge, your information may cease being common knowledge. If, for instance, you quoted the rest of Hamlet's speech, or discussed the debate over the approval of the first amendment that took place in 1790, or described the specific chemical reaction DDT causes in Bald Eagle eggs, your information would cease to be common knowledge to the general educated public. Among experts, these may still be considered common knowledge, but until you establish yourself as an expert, you must document this more specific information. Anything you learn from reading specifically for a paper must be documented, but if you read something three or four times in different sources, you can suspect that it is common knowledge.

Ways to Avoid Plagiarism

Write an outline. Once your outline is complete, flesh out the outline with information on the topic that you already know. If you have already begun to research and find that what you "know" is something that you have recently "learned," decide whether or not that information falls under the common knowledge category. If it does not, find the source that initially provided the information.

Keep careful notes. As you begin to write your paragraphs, for quotation, paraphrase, and summary, either incorporate citations immediately, or clearly mark where your citations will be added later.

Source: Bauman, M. Garrett. Ideas and Details: A Guide to College Writing. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1995.

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