Question: What is plagiarism and how can I avoid it?

Answer: Plagiarism, in plain and simple terms, is the stealing of someone else's words or ideas.  If you don't know what constitutes plagiarism, please visit the UW site at:

We love to see YOUR work, and that is certainly the best way to get the best possible grade. Don't worry that the English may not be perfect, though you should strive to use the clearest English possible. Get a friend to read your material and suggest changes. You should use the writing center on campus, and you can meet with TAs during office hours.

Rob has taken and taught courses in Portuguese and Swahili, and can certainly relate to the problems a person that knows English as a second language has. Only know that the more you write, the easier it is and the better you will be. Strive to relate ideas as best you can. Using pictures and figures certainly helps, as this language is Universal.

If you use words, thoughts or ideas from a published work, you MUST cite them in the body of your writing. There are several ways to do this, but key is that you immediately ascribe credit and cite the source (book, magazine, newspaper, individual's words, website, etc.) of those words, ideas or thoughts if they are not your own. You must include any copied words in quotes. You can only use quoted material sparingly in your paper, and it does not contribute to minimum length requirements. Papers that contain more than a few sentences of quoted material will not be accepted.

For help in how to avoid plagiarism on your web site you can check out the link above also.  It is a very good link to thoroughly read, and you are responsible for doing so:

Since the GoPost and Project requirements are individual efforts, responsibility clearly rests with the individual student. 

If you do all of this consistently, and check the project in the same way we do, you should have no problems.

We're looking forward to seeing those beautiful, fact-filled, original and properly cited posts on the web!