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K-12 Resources for Elementary and High School Students: Ethically Use Sources

Information and links to freely available academic resources for younger people.

Ethically Use of Resources

Plagiarism Graphic


The fifth and final step in Information Literacy is to ethically use the resources you have gathered in your paper or project. This means that you need to correctly cite them both in the text of your paper and in your references, works cited, or bibliography.

Even though information, words, and ideas are not concrete, they still can be stolen by them not being cited and those who commit plagiarism get in trouble.

Common Citation Style LibGuides by CSS

These LibGuides are to help you use the various style guides including:

  1. Reference Formats - examples and explanations for citing your sources in the various formats for your References list
  2. Formatting Your Paper - how to set up your paper including the margins, font, References list, headers and section breaks
  3. In-text Citations - also known as parenthetical notation - how to cite your references in the text of your paper
Note: These guides are in no way a replacement for the actual manuals, which can be found at a library or bookstore near you. Please consult the manuals for authoritative information in greater detail. Also feel free to talk with your teacher or a librarian for more help.

Avoiding Plagiarism

How can you avoid plagiarism? By carefully citing your sources when you use them in your assignments. This includes when you quote directly from a source, when you paraphrase or summarize a source's information, and even when you use an idea from a source. You must cite the source in the text of your paper and also in a PowerPoint presentation and have a references or works cited page, which lists all the sources you used.