Which term describes the act of copying someone's written research without acknowledging the author?

• A. Citation
• B. Plagiarism
• C. Paraphrase
• D. Quotation

Answer: (B)

Copying someone else's written work without giving credit is plagiarism. It means presenting another person's ideas, data, or exact wording as your own, with no acknowledgement of the source. This violates academic integrity and trust.

This term is the correct one because it captures the act of taking credit for someone else's intellectual effort. Proper ways to incorporate others' work include citing the source, which gives credit; paraphrasing, which restates the idea in your own words but still requires attribution; and quotation, which uses the original wording with proper quotation marks and citation. In contrast, simply copying without attribution—whether text copied verbatim or ideas reproduced without credit—falls under plagiarism, even if the source is a published study or a colleague’s notes.