What is Plagiarism

What is “fair use,” anyway?
The United States government has established rough guidelines for determining the nature and amount of work that may be “borrowed” without explicit written consent.

These are called “fair use” laws, because they try to establish whether certain uses of original material are reasonable. The laws themselves are vague and complicated. Below we have condensed them into some rubrics you can apply to help determine the fairness of any given usage.

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  The nature of your use.
  

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  If you have merely copied something, it is unlikely to be considered fair use. But if the material has been transformed in an original way through interpretation, analysis, etc., it is more likely to be considered “fair use.”
  

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  The amount you’ve used.
  

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  The more you’ve “borrowed,” the less likely it is to be considered fair use. What percentage of your work is “borrowed” material? What percentage of the original did you use? The lower the better.
  

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