It is assumed that everything in a paper that you hand in under your own name is entirely your creative work. You are the author.
When some portion of a paper is not entirely of your own creation, it is your obligation and duty to inform the reader of this fact. The easiest situation (1) is where a portion of text has been taken as a whole from the work of some other person. In this case, you simply enclose the text in quotes and give a suitable reference to the source. In a somewhat less well defined situation (2) you have lifted an idea from another author but the textual version is your own. This is called paraphrasing and you are duty-bound to make suitable reference to the source of the idea if that source can be considered unique and, hence, if the idea is not in some sense common knowledge. A more abstract situation than this (3) is when you present material in your own words but the material is not drawn from your own experience or direct research and observations. Hence, you should periodically refer the reader to where reports of this material can be found. Needless to say, submission of a paper that has been wholly written for you represents the 0th order of seriousness, above, and is the most extreme offense.
Failing to give proper references in any of these situations represents plagiarism. At Harvey Mudd College, plagiarism is a serious Honor Code offense.
It should be noted that texts are not the only issue. Your paper may present images, graphics, empirical data, or even sound bites. All of the same reasoning above applies for these aspects of your paper as well. We assume that all of these features are of your own creation unless you say so.
Copyright
Plagiarism and copyright are related in the following sense. When a person creates anything -- text, data, images, graphics, music, etc. -- that person is the author and is protected by copyright laws. Another person cannot copy or otherwise reproduce that creation and represent it as his/her own, according to the rules of plagiarism. Copyright laws go even further, however. Generally speaking, another person is forbidden to use this creation, in original or copied form, without the written permission of its author. Even when you purchase someone's work, they may place certain restrictions upon your use of it. For instance, just because you bought someone's book does not give you the right to make a hundred copies of it to sell to other people. Also, software that you purchase is typically protected so that you do not have the right to offer copies of it to friends.
Nevertheless, in the course of legitimate scholarly work, you may have a right to use portions of a person's creative work so long as you give proper credit and so long as your use fits what is called "the Doctrine of Fair Use." (See http://www.benedict.com/ ) "Fair use" usually means that you reproduce only small portions of another person's work and that you do it for critical or scholarly purposes.
Making References
You may gather materials for a research paper from different sources. Here are some examples.
Interviews and personal observations --- you may do original research. If this is the case, you should treat the situation just as you have been taught in laboratory courses. Keep a notebook, diary, or make audio/video tapes. Date items and include lists of people and places.
Books, journals, newspapers, magazines, or archived records --- give enough information so that a reader can easily return to the original source to verify the material. This includes authorship, titles of articles, journals, anthologies, books, etc. You should include publication details. For unique archived sources you should include the place where these materials are located.
Internet sources --- the WorldWideWeb is coming to be used increasingly as a source of information and that is acceptable. HOWEVER, you must give (1) the complete URL for the site, (2) the date on which information was drawn from the site, AND (3) a thorough summary of authorship and institutional affiliation, sponsorship, or basis for the site. If, for example, the Web site is presented by an individual, you must be able to document who the individual is and what qualifications he/she possesses in order to present this material. If this information is not available the Internet material may not be included. Also, if you plan to use Internet materials, be sure to consult with your instructor. Most faculty members will accept only a limited amount of materials taken from the Internet; for most people, it is absolutely unacceptable to write a research paper that is based entirely on Internet materials
Common reference formats are illustrated in the writing handbook used in Hum 1 each year. Please conform to one of these.
A Special Warning about the Internet
The Internet has made it extremely easy to appropriate texts, images, graphical materials, sound bites, and videos electronically. Please be extremely careful in handling Internet materials and give thorough credit when credit is due. You may not simply appropriate an image off of a Web site, for instance, as easy as that is; you must, at the very least, give credit to the site from which it was taken. If you use materials from a Web site, you must consider (1) proper and complete credit for the source of the material AND even (2) whether you have a legal right or permission to use this material. These issues become even more acute in situations where the "paper" or presentation that you are creating will be in the form of a Web document being served to the world. That is, copying something and serving it through one of your own Web pages may not qualify as "fair use" even when including it in a hard-copy essay would have.