Giving Credit Where Credit Is Due: Middle School in September!

Are we allowed to cut-and-paste pictures off of the Web into our reports?

If you paraphrase someone else's words, is that the same as stealing someone else's ideas?

How do you use someone else's ideas without plagiarizing?

Besides reviewing how to use databases and the differences in between websites, databases and search engines, middle school students (grades 6 through 8) have been receiving intensive library workshops about plagiarism and creating citations...such important knowledge and skills for the 21st century, when it has become increasingly easy (too easy!) to "cut and paste" other people's work and call it our own.  Every middle school student is expected to show Ms. Esmé one example of evidence that citations are being used in their everyday work in other classes each marking period, to make sure these skills transfer and are kept up. It is also so important for high school, college and beyond, and a matter of moral (and sometimes legal) obligation.  To that end, please check out our new Citation Station tab here on the Stone Bookworms site, full of automated citation generators that make creating citations and bibliographies so simple, even fun.  Thanks to the middle school for some great conversations about plagiarism, credibility and intellectual property, and for braving citation formats!  It takes practice, but we'll get it down!