How to avoid plagiarism and thus fraud

"Derived from the Latin word plagiarius ("kidnapper" and also "plagiarist" in the modern sense), plagiarism is defined by Alexander Lindley as "the false assumption of authorship: the wrongful act of taking the product of another person's mind, and presenting it as one's own" (Plagiarism and Originality [New York: Harper, 1952], p. 2). Plagiarism may take the form of repeating another's sentences as your own, adopting a particularly apt phrase as your own, paraphrasing someone else's argument as your own, or even presenting someone else's line of thinking in the development of a thesis as though it were your own. In short, to plagiarize is to give the impression that you have written or thought something that you have in fact borrowed from another. Although a writer may use other persons' words and thoughts, they must be acknowledged as such."¹

Example: I quote a book above, so I make a (foot)note indicating the bibliographic reference. If you use another's idea, make a footnote indicating the (exact) source. In a printed paper the footnotes must go at the bottom of the page; for digital documents there are no set parameters yet.

¹ Norman Gibaldi and Walter Archert. MLA Handbook for writers of research papers, thesis and dissertations. New York: MLA. 1970. pg.4