Plagiarism in Group Projects

Peer review and other collaborative activities raise important, and potentially confusing, questions.

The answers to these questions will vary from situation to situation. In general, it’s appropriate to use comments from reviewers in your document without citing them. If a reviewer’s comments are particularly helpful, you might acknowledge his or her contributions in your document; writers often thank reviewers in a footnote or an endnote or in an acknowledgments section. It is usually appropriate to list coauthors on a collaboratively written document without identifying the text that each coauthor wrote, although some instructors ask that individual contributions be noted in the document or on a cover page. If you are uncertain about what is appropriate, ask your instructor.